Experimental
by Alana Hikari-Chan
Summary: Dropped. Old and bad, read at your own risk! There is a rewriting in progress.
1. Henbo

A idea I've had for a while. Reviews are welcome, flames will be used to roast the scumbags Ansem, Gol, and Pegasus. A joint effort between my muses, but mostly... Me, actually.  
  
Honorary Mention goes to Ozric 750 from Runescape community for Takeo's name! Thanks! (When I first came up with this, I was stuck calling him Yami.)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Beginnings: Part One  
  
Henbo [Mutation]  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ We are in the library at the Hallow Bastion.  
  
Leon climbed the bookshelf quickly. In the three years since the heartless had disappeared, he had come up here to think often. He sat for a while, museing over life, the universe, and everything, in no particular order. For a while he thought of Sora (the kid with the keyblade) and his sweetheart, Kairi. And he thought for a moment of the heartless. ::No, that's behind us now. They're gone.:: And he thought of how Yuffie had gotten MORE hyper, if possible, and how now she could beat him about half the time.  
  
A flash of red and shining grey catches his half-closed eyes. He turns his head quickly, but only catches a glimpse of the figure under the brilliant hair before it darts around the corner.  
  
::Curious.::  
  
No one in the castle has silver hair. Let alone silver streaked with dark red.  
  
***  
  
~~~ We are in a small, dark room. There are four figures in the shadows, difficult to make out.  
  
The second largest figure speaks first. His hair is brown streaked with silver. His light green eyes burn with anger, masking worry. His name is Takeo.  
  
"Neko, how could you let him see you? After all these years, why is it now that one of us is sighted?"  
  
The girl Neko looks down, ashamed. The noteable silver and red hair Leon saw falls across her lavender eyes. Something seems strange about her ears.  
  
"I'm sorry, Takeo, but... I was curious. I still am. He's been here for so long, and hasn't proved himself evil, or even mean, yet."  
  
The smallest and youngest person in the room, Anzu, pipes up in Neko's defense. We can barely see her deep blue eyes, half obscured by the ruddy chestnut hair shading her face.  
  
"Takeo, leave her alone. He only saw her for a moment."  
  
Oni, the oldest, glares at her, his hair and eyes both reddish- for the moment. He seems to be wearing a short black cape.  
  
"Anzu, have you forgotten Ansem? We're not safe out there. We will never be safe." His hair sets back to its normal tri-color, though his eyes retain a slight scarlet hue.  
  
Takeo frowns. His eyes seem to flash yellow. "Oni, don't say that."  
  
Oni frowns back. His hair turns solid silver, and his eyes turn orange- like Ansem. "Takeo, is this natural?" He changes again. Anzu shuffles uneasily, and something behind her seems to stir. Oni continues, ignoring her. "Or this? We are FREAKS. Me more than you three, maybe, but still. And people are afraid of freaks. Hidden is the only way we are safe."  
  
Anzu speaks out quaveringly. "But, Oni, how much would they do? None of us is older then ten. We're just KIDS."  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
As I said, reviews are welcome. Like? No like? FORSHADOWING! Many hints of conflicts ahead!  
  
Ember: That's because you've outlined ahead. The fight scene with Neko and Takeo vs. Oni needs work, BTB.  
  
SSH! They don't know about that yet! (shifty eyes) 


	2. Henshin

Next Chappie! ^_^ This 'un will introduce a new bit of plot or two. Actually, three, I think. Once again, thanks to Ozric for the name Takeo. (Waves to Oz) So, anyone figure out who the kids are? (Waits) I made it pretty obvious. Ozric, don't tell them! Well, R&R if ya please. ^_^  
::Blah:: = Thoughts  
(Yakkity yak) = Me  
~~~ Description = Place setting  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Beginnings: Part Two  
  
Henshin [Disguise]  
  
*******************  
  
~~~ We are in a hallway.  
  
Leon walks along the hallways to Yuffie's rooms. However unlikely it seems, she loves a good mystery. He bangs on the door once, waits a beat, then opens it. Yuffie glances up from the couch, grins, and waves to the seat next to her.  
  
"Hey Leon, sit next to me?"  
  
Leon shakes his head mutely and leans on the doorframe. Yuffie grins again, leans into the armrest, and puts her chin in her hands.  
  
"So, why are you moody today? Not that you need a reason, but you only visit me when there is one." Leon shrugs.  
  
"Saw something or somebody that I couldn't have."  
  
The hyper ninja (Who told spellcheck that "Ninja" isn't a word?) perks up more. Somehow. Don't ask me how.  
  
"What? Was it exciting and cause to go off on great adventures? We don't do enough of that these days."  
  
Leon sighs deeply at her overexuberance. ::Maybe I shouldn't have come to HER...:: But he replies anyway.  
  
"I saw some really strange hair on top of a figure maybe the size of a wizard heartless. Just for a moment, though."  
  
At the word heartless, Yuffie stiffens slightly. No one enjoyed the memories from that time.  
  
"WAS it a... You know..."  
  
"A heartless? No, I don't think so. It looked to human, and what heartless had hair?"  
  
"Well, if you count the ringleaders." Yuffie grins. (How can she keep it up?)  
  
"Hm. Maybe."  
  
"Well, I'll get right on it! That is what you wanted me to do, right?" Leon nods silently and turns to leave. Yuffie waves again. "Seeya Leon! Come back ANYtime!"  
  
As the door swings closed, Leon stands stock-still. ::Did she mean?!... Of course she did. It's YUFFIE, for crying out loud. What else WOULD she mean?:: And with this rhetorical question, he walks down the corridor, shaking his head.  
  
***  
  
~~~ A very skinny, low, dark passage.  
  
Neko grins at the slightly fluffy moment ends, sliding the eye slot shut.   
  
::Aw, how sweet! She likes him!::   
  
She pulls a straight face on as she walks past   
Oni in his niche. It is amazingly easy for her to do so. Oni glares suspiciously. She suddenly grins for no good reason, then hums the only cheerful song she knows. Oni turns away, walking down the passage that leads towards the kitchens.   
  
::I will never understand why he hates cheerfulness...::  
  
As soon as he is out of sight, she drops the smile and hisses. Her hands curve, looking amazingly claw-like.  
  
::Soon, Oni. You'll slip soon, and I'll be there to catch you.::  
  
***  
  
~~~ At the library, about a week later.  
  
Leon has just jogged back to the library. He grabs a book randomly to read. Well, to help him sleep. He wasn't in the theology area for pleasure. He opens the random theology book and drops it by accident. A large bundle of paper falls out.  
  
He picks them up and scans the top sheet.  
  
His eyes widen... And widen... and widen...  
  
He bolts in quite an undignified manner, screaming for Yuffie at the top of his lungs.  
  
Did you think I would tell you what's on the papers?  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
MWAHAHAHAHAHA! BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE EVIL CLIFHANGER!  
  
Jo: -_-()... Although I like the last bit, Alana.  
  
Lily: Nice plot development.  
  
R...Really? (REALLY big happy eyes) Ember?  
  
Ember: ... I like the ending of the second part.  
  
Thanks! ^_^... Wait, you guys don't count. YOU guys-(Points to the audience)-do. REIVEIW! Or be forever sentenced to... BAKAHOOD. (Scary Music)  
  
Jo: Have you been hanging with that no good yami of yours? The strange word has her ring about it.  
  
Ehheh... No, of course not! And it's simple enough. Baka (idiot) Hood (Umm. Ness? Yeah. Idiotness!) ^_^;;  
  
Ember: That was lame.  
  
Lily: Wasn't it, though.  
  
Yami: Grr... Why are you three beating up on my idea?  
  
ACK! Back in the necklace, Back in the necklace, BACK IN THE NECKLACE!  
  
Yami: HEY! (Is sucked into the Millennium Cat-like Pendant thingamajig)  
  
Lily: Well, this was a waste of time.  
  
Oh? Was it? It got you... FREE GLOMPING OF ANSEM WITHOUT ME YELLING AT YOU!  
  
Lily: (Really big eyes) Did you just mention "Ansem" and "Glomping" in the same sentence?  
  
Yep!  
  
Lily: ^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^ JOY!  
  
Ansem: (Appears in a puff of smoke and is glomped by Lily) ACK!  
  
Jo: O_O Is she being UNDIGNIFIED?  
  
It appears so. Well. That WAS a waste of time, actually. So, millions of people reading this! PLEASE review! For me? (Puppy eyes)  
  
Ian: (Wanders in) You have pathetic pup eyes.  
  
Aw, shaddup, ya baka!  
  
Ember: I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE! THIS MUST END! (Smashes keyboard)  
  
Dshbukv Fein Kr trkjcyr khuxrt recta trc; tur cictrltu iii iutyt liver iwyrlr  
V 9832484fnuyg98vjg485 v875vb 75v 87 


	3. Matrix

(Is awe-filled at Court of Souls and When All Other Lights Go Out) THOSE stories are on the level of... Of... Of David Eddings and McMaster Bujold. And that's the highest complement on earth, peoples. Read Rem-chan's stuff NOW. She's on my Favorite Authors list.  
  
Those amazingly long, wondrous chapters inspired me. And so, I present to you the third part of Experimental.  
  
THANKS TO:  
  
Shadowwind for reviewing  
  
Ozric 750 for the name Takeo  
  
DIS: I own Anzu, Neko, Takeo, and Oni, as well as anyone in dream segments and the white marble version of the chapel. I DON'T own Kingdom Hearts. Or Hiei, who I'm about to cry on because I don't own Kingdom Hearts, him, or Kenshin. (Falls onto Hiei's very short shoulder in a strangely glomp-like maneuver and bursts into tears)  
  
Hiei: (Gives me a Look with all three eyes) You're lucky that I can't kill you because of my arm.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Beginnings: Part Three  
  
Matrix  
  
*********************  
  
~~ We are at the Hallow Bastion. The only person awake in the entire castle is Oni. In the morning, Leon is to make a speech.  
  
The castle shifts nervously in its sleep. Many strange dreams fly about at this midnight hour, of dark and light and places unknown. A person with a heart of silver, in some places tarnished, feels the gate. The black stars twinkle as he walks into the realm of true dreams, of Other dreams.  
  
~~ Someplace almost like the Hallow bastion. It has- at the same time- the feel of dreams and actuality.  
  
A girl like Neko, but with gold and black hair, runs down a wide passage. She holds in her arms a tiny child with hair of gold and green, with matching wings sprouting from the child's back.  
  
"Bastet! Why are the chasing us?" the tiny one cries in fear. As Bastet takes a few more steps, a mob of people round the corner- Twisted, almost-versions of the denizens of the Bastion we know. Bastet cries out in hopelessness, backed into a corner.  
  
"They hate us for what we are, Isis." Bastet bows her head. "But we will NOT die without a fight!" She drops Isis to the ground and raises her hands.  
  
Dark claws sprout from Bastet's fingers, and she slashes out at the mob. Isis backs away against a wall, pain evident in her face.  
  
~~ We focus in on Isis.  
  
The tiny experiment stares in horror, hand clutching her hair.  
  
"The hate... It hurts. It HURTS!" Isis's cry rings through the castle.  
  
We see the shadow of the mob surround Bastet's. Another cry of pain cut abruptly short.  
  
"It hurts..."  
  
~~ Everything fades to a swirl of darkness. A barely perceptible brightening shows us a figure lying on a floor.   
  
Takeo cries out in his sleep. Dreams are what keeps his family alive- the dreams of hope, and his dreams of Other. The dreams of Other, of what happens if they do something, warn him. And he knows that sometime the Other won't be enough.  
  
Someday, instead of a dream Bastet or Isis, it would be the real Neko or Anzu.  
  
He dreads that day.  
  
***  
  
A/N: That dream thing wasn't planned, but it's setting up for an idea I had. And all shall become clear in time. On with the story!  
  
***  
  
~~ We are in the Chapel the next morning. It has been fixed since the fight with Malifcent, and is mostly in white marble.  
  
Leon sits sweating behind the podium, waiting for the room to fill up. A lot of new people had shown up since Kingdom Hearts closed, such as a strange girl with one green, one blue eye, another girl with red eyes, a third girl with swirling eyes, and a man with one eye. * :: WAY too many freaky eyes, all looking at me... :: Ya' see, Leon suffers from a malady commonly known as... STAGEFRIGHT.  
  
~~ Spooky music plays  
  
Leon: (Thwacks me)  
  
~~ The music stops  
  
(Rubs back of head) Ow... Fine, I'll stop.  
  
Ahem... Well, anyway, he steps up to the makeshift podium (Freaking out from his STA- *Gets thwacked again* Ow! Stop hitting me!) and raises his hands for silence. After a pause, he gets it.  
  
He takes a deep breath. "As most of us know, Ansem didn't always tell us everything." A few people nod and Yuffie mutters something about major understatements. "Well, there are a few things that he hid from us aside from the Heartless." Yuffie, the only person who knows what's going on, mutters again about understatements. Leon gives her a Look and she stops being noisy.   
  
"In his... Quest for knowledge... he had a couple of other experiments. Recently-" Yuffie mutters yesterday, and Leon gives her another Look "- I found his notes on the experiment. He was trying to find a way to improve humans. The results may still be in the castle somewhere."  
  
People start to murmur. More experiments? I thought that we were over and done with this stuff. If it's made by Ansem, I don't want to know more. Ansem?! Not more of HIM! It's probably evil. HE made it?  
  
Leon raises his hands for quiet again. "They are POSSIBLY dangerous. But then, so are most of you." Yuffie- AGAIN- mutters about understatements. Leon glares at her.  
  
"YUFFIE. Be QUIET for once. And if you can't, then LEAVE." Yuffie sees the glint in his eyes and wisely shuts up. "Thank you. Now, as I said, the results are possibly dangerous. BUT we don't want them harmed. I want you to keep all eyes open for them, and to report IMMEDIATELY if you see them. No exceptions. Any questions?" Cid raises his hand. "What?"  
  
"Well, first off, I want to congratulate you on not choking after speaking so long- That means I win the betting pool." Several people groan at this and glance sadly at their soon-to-be much lighter purses. Leon rolls his eyes. "Secondly, I'm wondering... What ARE the results?"  
  
Leon looks out with slightly sad, worried eyes. "Ansem was experimenting on... CREATEING... kids."  
  
***  
  
* The people described are Yuna, Lulu, Rikku, and Auron from FFX.  
  
HA! Leon's go-ot stage fright, Leon's go-ot stage fright!! ^_^_^  
  
Leon: (Grumbles) Get on with it, Alana.  
  
***  
  
~~ In another very small, very dark room.  
  
Oni sighs. Neko appears very happy.  
  
"Well, that's that. They know about us."  
  
Oni looks reprovingly at the short seven-year-old. His eyes are the frosty blues of worry under his blazing headband. "It was inevitable, Neko, but it needn't have been until we were all old enough to handle these people."  
  
Takeo glares. "We could've stopped it, Oni. Why didn't you help us find the reports?"  
  
Oni shrugs. "It wasn't worth my time."  
  
"Wasn't WORTH-" Takeo cuts off as Anzu whimpers slightly.  
  
"Please... Please stop being angry. I can't stand it." These quiet words have instant effect on Takeo.  
  
"I'm sorry, Anzu. But did you hear what he said?"  
  
"Yes. But I don't really care." The six-year old subsides, closing her eyes.  
  
Neko stands up gracefully. "You know, I'm tired of just sneaking around. I haven't talked to ANYONE except us since three years ago. I mean, even the Heartless were almost better than this. I'm tired of just hiding in the shadows from people we have no evidence against. And Leon said not to hurt us. He HAS been pretty much in charge. And, well, I'm curious, Takeo."  
  
Takeo almost winces as he remembers his dream. "Curiosity killed the cat! Are you insane?"   
  
Oni nods at this, also glaring at Neko. His hair starts to darken. "Takeo's right. Did you hear what they said?"  
  
"Guys, yes I did. And clichés effect me about none. I don't care what anyone says. I'm going out." Ignoring Oni's steadily darkening hair and eyes, Neko crouches next to Anzu. "Do you want to come along, Ani *?"  
  
Anzu nods, then shakes her head. "I'm... Not sure. They can be scary, especially some of the fighters."  
  
Neko nods in understanding. "Well, if you want to, follow me." And with another glare at her brothers, especially Oni, she walks out.  
  
Oni glares with pitch black eyes after her, looking like he would swear if he knew any words. He stomps out after her.  
  
Anzu shudders slightly at the anger trailing back like a comet from Oni's black hair, and the hate flashing like sparks only she can see from Neko's lavender, sometimes slit-pulped eyes.  
  
***  
  
*Ani is a nickname for Anzu that I made up. Pronounced Annie.   
  
OK, end chapter. Over three pages! Woo! And 1451 words! ^_^ Well, reviews are beyond welcome, and I have a poll I would like everyone to respond to.  
  
POLL:  
  
Should Neko or Takeo get a Keyblade, and what existing Keyblade do you think fits best for your choice? 


	4. Egress

A/N: Short today.  
  
DIS: Don't own Kingdom Hearts. Wish I did. Same goes for Hiei and Kenshin. v_v  
  
Hiei: This is becoming annoying.  
  
Kenshin: That is true.  
  
THANKS:   
  
Ozric 750  
  
Leann-chan- I'm glad you do!  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Beginnings: Part Four  
  
Egress  
  
*********************  
  
~~ A hallway, well lit  
  
Neko slips out of a wall, followed closely by a scowling Oni. His eyes burn black, his hair black touched red. What previously appeared to be a short, tattered black cape reveals itself to be small bat wings as they flutter with distress behind him.  
  
"NEKO!" He grabs her wrist, and she turns on him, hissing, her brightly flashing silver claws fully out. Her slightly pointed teeth and ears are clearly visible, and her pupils slit, making her lavender eyes sinister. He wisely lets go of her, but Neko's eyes don't return to normal above her six tiny but dark freckles reminiscent of whisker spots.  
  
"Don't. EVER. Touch. Me." Neko hisses out between clenched teeth.  
  
Oni almost backs up a step as a single white stripe flashes in his hair. Almost. "Neko, if they see you, what will they do? You're not exactly NORMAL." The last word is laden with anger. "And you only make one first impression- I know you won't be able to get in control before they come."  
  
Neko glares at him. Her claws retract into human (If sharp) fingernails, her eyes return to normal, and a barely perceptible sheen of ice fades from her hair and charcoal grey clothes. "You were saying?" she asks with an angry look.  
  
Oni blinks once in almost-surprise. "But it isn't time yet..." he says quietly, almost to himself. His wings fold in around his shoulders and his eyes fade to the stormy grey of confusion and worry. Neko looks askance at him.  
  
"Time for what?" she asks.  
  
Oni shakes his head. "Nothing." He growls harshly. "Nothing you need to know about yet.  
  
Neko's ears twitch as Oni's eyes darken back to black. "Someone's coming. Are you staying or going?" Her eyes clearly state that SHE would prefer going. Oni growls again and slips back into the secret passage. He nearly runs into a calm-looking Anzu.  
  
The youngest flinches as her mind brushes his. She wishes that she knew how to control how her emotions showed.  
  
In the brighter corridor, every orange-apricot feather on her oversized-looking wings clearly shake with tension and fear.  
  
::Neko'll protect me,:: Anzu thinks desperately. But she still couldn't banish her worry that it might not be Aerith or Yuna who found them, but a scary one- Sephiroth or Cloud.(1)  
  
*********************  
  
(1): Sephiroth came to the Hallow Bastion with assorted other FF characters. And even though he's not EVIL anymore, he's not the nicest guy on the block. And Cloud... You have to admit, he MIGHT be scary for a timid six-year-old.  
  
480 Words! Whoopee! Not.  
  
Reviews? Please? (Hopeful look)  
  
BTB, the poll is still going.  
------------- 


	5. Yareru ka?

A/N: Don't rely on my Japanese translations in the titles. They're second-hand.  
  
DIS: (Gives you Look) Baka. If you don't get it yet, I don't want an idiot like you reading this. I don't own anything owned by other people.  
  
THANKS:  
  
Ozric 750(As always)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Beginnings: Part Five  
  
Yareru ka? [Are you up to it?]  
  
*********************  
  
~~ Another dark secret passage. (Geeze, there're a lot of these...)  
  
Takeo looks up as Oni storms quietly in. Something in Oni's dark eyes, not so much angry as offended at an interruption and totally cold, sparks a memory of Ansem. The memory of Ansem sparks another memory, much more recent- just last night.  
  
Takeo's own aqua-green eyes widen considerably as he bolts past Oni. A few quiet words reach Takeo's ears as he runs through the secret ways.  
  
"This'll ruin my plans totally. I thought Takeo would be a constant..."  
  
***  
  
~~ The brightly lit hallway we left Neko and Anzu in.  
  
Anzu stiffens slightly as she recognizes the person approaching. Neko notices.  
  
The Mako-eyed warrior rounds the corner and instinctively casts an offensive spell at the unexpected and unfamiliar figures, instantly knocking one out and the other nearly. Then he casts another spell, one used to keep an enemy immobile while dealing with another- a sort of cage. Then, when it finally registers on Cloud's mind that these might not be monsters, he's hit square in the chest by a few more volts of electricity than a human is built to stay awake after.  
  
Takeo takes a slightly worried, if brief, look at the blond guy he just hit. The light mostly dies out of topaz chips at the corners of his eyes, although a tiny pulse remains. Then he walks over to the flickering iridescent blue dome over his sisters.  
  
"Anzu? Are you okay?" he asks through the magic.  
  
She nods. "I'm not sure about Neko, though. She looks... Really pale." Really pale is an understatement. Neko's skin is naturally pale already, she hasn't been outside for almost three years, and a powerful spell just hit her. The best word to describe her skin tone at that moment is pure white. The tiny chips of ice flaking off from her clothes with every convulsive shiver don't exactly help. "Should I try to warm her up?" Anzu asks nervously. She cups a hand and a tiny flame appears in her palm. "That might help, right?"  
  
"I don't really think so, Ani. She's ice, so fire may hurt more than anything else."  
  
Anzu starts to cry. "It's not fair that we're opposites! I can't help her at all!"  
  
Takeo thinks quickly. "We might be able to help another way. Do you think if we hit this force shield hard enough, it'd break?"  
  
Anzu nods, wiping tears from her eyes. "Anything breaks if hit hard enough."  
  
Takeo smiles encouragingly at her. "Well then, let's try it! On the count of three, okay?"  
  
Anzu nods.  
  
"One-" The topazes glint with lightning, and sparks start to shimmer in Anzu's wings. "Two-" Takeo raises his hands, flicks of light glowing between his fingers and the flakes of gems embedded in them. Anzu's eyes brighten to almost a flame-blue. "THREE!"  
  
A sharp clap of thunder fills the hall, combined with a roar of flame and a brilliant red-yellow-white light.  
  
***  
  
~~ Following Leon out of the Chapel.  
  
Leon trudges out of the chapel, vaguely disturbed by what Yuffie had said as she was leaving the meeting.  
  
:: FLASHBACK ::  
  
"Yuffie, are you going to do anything silly or stupid today?"  
  
"Why, need to fit it into you schedule, great fearless leader?"  
  
:: END FLASHBACK ::  
  
He had stood like an idiot, trying to cope with what had hit him as very true.   
::I _AM_ the leader, now. How come I didn't figure it out? Even Cloud listens to me, and for him, that's a task.:: His disturbed museing comes to a sudden halt as a great, roaring noise echoes down a hallway, accompanied by a brilliant light show. ::Speak of the devil... That's down Cloud's way. What's it this time?:: Leon breaks into a quick jog.  
  
He rounds a corner to see three small bodies huddled on the floor, Cloud a few feet away.  
  
A quick look-over reveals that none of them are dead, just out for a while. It also reveals that all three unknowns on the floor have... oddities about them.  
  
::Who knew that three of the experiments would show up just as I finished my speech?::  
  
The older girl kept on convulsing, and with each shudder, flakes of ice fluttered off of her, and claws extended then retracted from her fingers. Her red-and-silver hair he recognized from the library.  
  
The boy was fairly normal except for the silver streaks in his shaggy brown hair, and the tiny gemstones by his eyes that pulsed very faintly.  
  
The younger girl...::Something's familiar about her. Something odd...:: And not the flame-like wings, or the hair clip Leon recognized as the top part of the Heartless symbol holding back her almost-brown, almost-red hair. Suddenly, it struck Leon- at the same time as a powerful Gravity spell.  
  
Her innocence, projected around her like a halo, that he had last seen coming from a certain chestnut-haired boy over three years ago- just before Sora had set out for the End of the World.  
  
*********************  
  
Three pages! 931 words! Be happy- and REVIEW! If you don't want me to turn my Yami on you, that is.  
  
Yami Alana: OOH! May I torture people? May I? May I? ^_^  
  
No. Just kill them quickly and get it over with.  
  
Yami Alana: Aww... v_v 


	6. Estuans interius ira vehementi

This chapter will use some Japanese. All translations will be at the very end, if you can't figure it out from context. The title is a line from "One-Winged Angel" that translates from Latin as "Burning inside with violent anger."  
  
Well, approximately.  
  
DIS: Don't own KH of "The Dream Within" (The song in the dream segment)  
  
THANKS:  
  
Ozric 750(As always)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Beginnings: Part Six  
  
Estuans interius ira vehementi  
  
*********************  
  
:: PAST ::  
  
~~ Ansem's Lab.  
  
Ansem smiles in satisfaction, speaking quietly to himself as he peers inside a tube of bubbling amber liquid. A figure floats inside.  
  
"This may turn out correctly, this time. Perhaps it is the blend of the fourth samples, from that older experiment Hojo and I worked on. What did he call himself? Ah, something to do with a tree of life, I believe. But no matter. That one went mad when he discovered what he is. Soon, this one will be ready. I think I've done it, this time. Darkness that does not only sleep: That lives."  
  
:: PRESENT ::  
  
~~ A dark room  
  
Neko wakes to the sound of Takeo and Oni fighting.  
  
"How stupid can you GET? If you're going to blast something that might blast back, do it from COVER!"  
  
"Well, excuse me, but Anzu was hysterical, Neko was KOed, and they were both inside a magic cage! What was I supposed to do? Wait for the BAKA who did it to wake up?"  
  
Oni's eyes and hair flare red. "NO! Stay out of it and leave those idiot girls! This has completely ruined my plans!"  
  
"Your PLANS?! Kamawanai! WHY would I CARE about your plans?! Sometimes I think you're ANSEM all over again! The dream said they might DIE! The dream DID die!"  
  
"DREAMS?! Your stupid, senseless dreams?! You should have LEFT them to die!"  
  
"Oni, say that again." Neko stands slowly up, her eyes taking on a feral golden tinge. Oni takes a startled look at her, hair paling. "No, really, say it again. I would very much enjoy hurting you."  
  
Anzu has woken up to hear these last few words. "Neko... What are you doing? You're darker than usual..."  
  
Neko smiles gently at Anzu for a moment. "Oni thinks Takeo should have let us die. I'm just a bit angry at him." She turns back to Oni. "Do you want to fight me now or later?"  
  
Oni shakes his head. "Iie, I really do NOT want to fight you. It's not calculated to fit that."  
  
"I'm nana, you're kyuu. What do you have to worry about? Fight me."  
  
Oni gets those impatient grey eyes of his, hair darkening to the red, silver, and chestnut stripes. "I SAID no."  
  
"Fine. I'll have to force the issue." Neko examines her claws for a moment, then leaps with a hiss at Oni. He dodges easily, an almost relived look on his face.   
  
"Well, now at least I CAN fight you. That prohibition was getting annoying." And with this, he backhands her.  
  
***  
  
~~ Neko's Dreams  
  
::Ongaku... Music...::  
~ Free the dream within   
  
The stars are crying a tear   
  
A sigh escapes from heaven   
  
And the world's end ~  
::Oni's like Ansem... He is an end.::  
  
*Are you ready, little kitten?*  
~ Breathe the dream within   
  
The mystifying   
  
We tremble and spin   
  
Suspended within ~  
::I'm not a kitten. I'm a cat. It's my name.::  
  
*The boy needs help. Are you ready?*  
  
::Iie. Why do you keep asking that?::  
~ Look beyond where hearts can see   
  
Dream in peace   
  
Trust, love, believe ~  
*The door to light has not been opened.*  
  
::Light's back. The heartless are gone.::  
  
*No. They are bound. The bonds are almost broken.*  
  
::The heartless are coming back?!::  
~ We tremble and spin   
  
Suspended within ~  
*Are you ready?*  
  
::Hai! Anything to stop them! They hurt Anzu!::  
~ Free the dream within   
  
The voices calling, a song   
  
A prayer from deep inside you   
  
To guide you ~  
*Then there may be hope, kitten.*  
~ Be the dream within   
  
The light is shining   
  
A flame on the wind   
  
Salvation begins   
  
Look beyond where hearts can see   
  
Dream in peace   
  
Trust, love, believe   
  
We tremble and spin   
  
Suspended within   
  
Free the dream within   
  
The stars are crying a tear   
  
A sigh escapes from heaven   
  
And the world's end ~  
*Your parents need you.*  
  
::My... Parents?::  
  
And then she woke up.  
  
****************  
  
TRANSALATIONS:  
  
Iie: No  
  
Hai: Yes  
  
Baka: Idiot, stupid, silly, ect.  
  
Kamawanai: Used as "I don't care"  
  
Nana: Seven  
  
Kyuu: Nine  
  
Ongaku: Music  
  
Review: What you are about to do if you don't want to be turned into a chocolate bar and given to Jo 


	7. Halfhealed

WARNING: Aerith/Cloud. It's only a warning because some heathens think Cloud's in love with Tifa. Weird and maybe slightly depressing at the beggining?  
  
THANKS:  
  
Ozric 750(...Well, duh.)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Demi: Part One  
  
Half-healed  
  
*********************  
  
"He began to grope his way toward something that seemed significant. Light could change. Every day was testimony to that. Dark could not. Then it was at last that he understood the /true/ meaning of the eternal division which had rent the universe apart."  
  
--- The Seeress of Kell  
  
********  
  
~~ Kingdom Hearts, by a small pool of what looks like dark water  
  
Riku looks abstractedly down into the shallow pond below him, absently swinging his bat-wing sword. A shadow skitters behind him. He ignores it. They never attack.  
  
:: Day one-thousand exactly. God, I hate this place. :: He frowns at another shadow, who has gotten a bit too close, then looks back down into the water. He gasps.  
  
"Sora?!"  
  
The image in the water looks up with tired, sad eyes.  
  
*********  
  
~~ Aerith's apartments, ten days after the Dream  
  
Neko rummages through a drawer, searching for the tiny latch she knows is there. She winces momentarily and clutches convulsively at her sloppily bandaged right arm. "Damn you, Oni," she mutters under her breath. She continues to search and finally finds it.  
  
A 'secret' compartment pops open to reveal a small stack of green curing potions. She grabs one and drains it as quickly as possible, then peels back the white cloth on her arm to see the effect. The wound underneath continues to bleed, but very sluggishly. It begins to scab as she watches.  
  
Tension drains from her face as the pain is mostly relived, but a slight stiffness in that arm remains as she quietly slips towards the sliding panel in the wall.  
  
Not quite quickly enough.  
  
The sound of voices moving down the hallway towards her makes Neko freeze momentarily. :: If I keep moving, they may see the passages. But if I stop, they'll see ME. :: Neko thinks for a moment, then darts towards the panel- just as the door opens and Aerith steps in.  
  
As Aerith smiles to someone in the hall, Neko quietly reaches for what looks like a knife strapped to her hip and shifts into a defensive position.  
  
*********  
  
~~ 2P Aerith, same place/time  
  
"I'll see you tomorrow, Cloud. Take care, all right?"  
  
Cloud nods and smiles in his uncertain, slightly strained way. "'Bye." He looks nervous for a moment, and then walks quickly down the hall.  
  
Aerith smiles gently at his back and turns to enter her rooms. She gasps.  
  
"You're... One of the experiments, aren't you?"  
  
The tiny girl in front of her hisses slightly, pointed teeth glinting and a blush of anger coloring her high cheekbones. "I. Am. Not. An. Experiment." Her hand creeps closer to a sheath at her hip, and she shifts from a purely defense stance to one suitable for both defense and attack.  
  
Aerith smiles nervously. "Sorry, but I don't know your name." She takes a closer look at the girl. "Your arm's bleeding."  
  
"Neko."  
  
"What?" Aerith blinks.  
  
"My name's Neko." The girl- :: Neko ::- relaxes slightly, sliding back into defensive. "Well, that's the name I chose. I hate my number."  
  
"Well... Neko... Your arm's still bleeding. Would you like me to cure it?"  
  
"No. It's fine. At least this time I didn't get KOed. It happened the first two times." A hint of pride creeps into Neko's voice. "I actually hurt Oni this time. He was limping, and his hair was pain-silver."  
  
:: KOed? Who is Oni? She's glad she hurt him? Pain-silver? :: "How old are you, Neko?"  
  
"Seven. Regular years, that is. I'm not sure how I'm gonna turn out. Ansem never got that far in the calculations before he dropped us for the Heartless." Neko's dropped all fighting stances in favor of standing calmly. "May I leave?"  
  
Aerith nods and moves away from the door. Neko, with a grace you rarely see in seven-year-olds, walks towards the portal. When she reaches it, she smiles at Aerith.  
  
"Thanks for the conversation. Takeo can get rather boring. I'm probably gonna get scolded when I get back." With a flip of her silver-red hair, Neko slips out of the room.  
  
Aerith stands a bit shocked for a moment then sits down on the bed. :: Well, that was unexpected. :: She sits for a moment longer, then hits her forehead.  
  
"I forgot to ask why she was in here!"  
TBC  
  
******************  
  
Finished just before I have to leave for my operation...  
  
Posted after I get back.  
  
My foot surgery went well. Actually, the IV hurts more than the toe that got cut open. oo;; 


	8. Half Heard

ARGH! I HAVE SEVEN CHAPTERS! WHY DO I ONLY HAVE FOUR REVEIWS? (Glares at anyone who's read but hasn't reviewed) I even accept anon reviews! How hard is it to simply click that little purple button and say "Good story! Keep it up!"?  
  
DIS: (Gives you look) I don't have time today.  
  
THANKS:  
  
Ozric 750 (Once again, duh.)  
  
Cloud-123 (Thanks for the compliment!  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Demi: Part Two  
  
Half-heard  
  
*********************  
  
~~ Takeo's dream? It looks almost like World Terminus, but the pillar in the center of the platform is brilliant white that shines with an iridescent sheen of darkness.  
  
A voice drifts on the wind...  
  
* Take your time... *  
  
Takeo looks around for a moment. "This is... strange. Normally, I'm not in my dreams." He walks up to the pillar, curious, and places his hand on it.  
  
~~  
  
* Careful. This is the last haven you'll find here. Beyond, there is no light to protect you. But don't be afraid. Your heart is the mightiest weapon of all. Remember, you are the one who will open the door to the light. *  
  
A older boy with chestnut hair looks around and a strange-looking bird squawks at him.  
  
"That voice... It sounded so familiar."  
  
~~  
  
The eight-year-old stumbles back, eyes wide. "His hair..." Takeo reaches up to his own unruly locks, the same shade chestnut streaked silver. "It's so like mine- ours..."  
  
He turns in a circle and walks up to a wall, eyes still wide. Looking out between the teeth-like rocks edging the lavender sand he stands on, he sees in the distance another platform, but that one has a shimmering pillar that shifts through shades of red and ocean blue.  
  
Takeo steps up to a blue will-o'-the-wisp and gets the awful feeling of not being for a moment. Then he trips into the platform he had seen from a distance. Slowly walking up to the pillar, he touches it much more tentatively.  
  
~~  
  
"... her." The taller, silver-haired teen steps to the side, showing that slumped to the deck behind him is a girl with dark red hair.  
  
"Kairi!" The brown-haired boy from the last pillar runs forward, only to be stopped by a pirate dressed all in red.  
  
"No shenanigans aboard MY vessel, boy!"  
  
Blue eyes glance at the one-handed pirate, then look pleadingly up at the aqua eyes so similar to Takeo's own. "Riku, why are you siding with the Heartless?"  
  
Riku stares back down, his eyes fiery and almost angry. "The heartless obey ME now, Sora. Now I have nothing to fear."  
  
"Riku..."  
  
~~  
  
Takeo falls away, stumbling into another blue wisp of light and that feeling of nothing. He catches himself before lurching to the floor and settles down gently.  
  
"I always thought that our parents were just a few random kids. But these people... Those boys, they were mine, and that girl was Anzu's and Neko's, they're the people that we always hear about..." Takeo rubs his arms, then looks up at the pillar before him. This one is a bright, cheerful yellow. He takes a deep, steadying breath, ready for anything, and plunges in.  
  
Almost anything, that is.  
  
~~  
  
He squints in the brilliant sunlight, birds singing around him. A girl in a dress the same color as the pillar and two boys stand nearby. A voice drifts by on the wind.  
  
* Talk to them... *  
  
Takeo walks up to the girl. "Er, hello..." The girl looks down at him and smiles brightly.  
  
"What's most important to you?"  
  
He blinks, startled, but thinks for a moment, looking down at the wooden platform. "Safety?..."  
  
"Is that really such a big deal?" His head jerks up, even more startled. Her bright voice gives him something to think about. To think about hard.  
  
He walks over to the taller, darker boy, who's spinning a blue and white ball on one finger. "Hey?..."  
  
"What do you want out of life?"  
  
Takeo frowns. "I... I would like to be able to walk through my home without being afraid."  
  
"That's great, ya, but is it important?"  
  
"Of course it is... I think..." Takeo tries to put it out of his mind, as well as the first response, as he walks to the last boy.  
  
"What're you afraid of?"  
  
"The people in the castle." This time, Takeo doesn't have to think. :: Finally, a easy one. ::  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I'm different." Takeo touches the gem near his right eye.  
  
"So you're afraid of being different."  
  
Takeo thinks for a moment. "I guess I am."  
  
"But is being different so bad?"  
  
The wind whispers in his ears.  
  
* Your adventure begins in the dead of night... Your road won't be easy, but a rising sun awaits your journey's end... The day when he will open the door is both far off and very near. *  
  
Everything fades to white, then to black.  
  
***********  
  
~~ Takeo's niche  
  
"Well, I thought you'd be awake to scold me."  
  
Takeo sits up, rubbing his eyes. "Neko... I was having an important dream."  
  
Neko shrugs, her silver hair falling into her eyes. She brushes it away impatiently. "Well, scold me for something..." She's obviously slightly perturbed about something.  
  
"What did you do?" He sighs.  
  
"Just got injured by Oni, went to get a potion from the secret stash, and got caught." She smiles in a slightly edgily way.  
  
"Did your meeting with whoever go well?"  
  
Neko blinks, not quite expecting this reaction, and maybe wanting the norm. "Er... She was nice. She called me an experiment, but after I cleared that up, she was nice. Even wanted to help heal my arm."  
  
Takeo nods. "Good. Go get Anzu. We're gonna have a family meeting."  
  
***********  
  
That segment with Riku a bit meant something. Sora and Kairi will soon be appearing OOD (Out of Dreams), so watch out! And tell me what you think of this chapter.   
  
Small Explanations:  
  
The beginning was a sort of version of the Awakening for Takeo, but everything said to Sora still applies- TO SORA. Hence, why Neko's PARENTS need her, and why "HE will open the door", not "YOU will...". The questionnaire at the end of the dream made Takeo think about the life they lead. And Neko was more shaken by being found than she let on, and wanted something NORMAL to happen.  
  
So... R&R? Please? For me? I even went back over this and fixed it up a bit... 


	9. Half Belived

~~ A tall, graceful woman looks out at the audience. She brushes deep purple forelocks out of her face and into lavender and gold streaked hair.  
  
"Hey," she murmurs. "For the next two chapters, and maybe more, Alana won't be doing any author notes. They'd slow the flow." She pauses, smoothing out her lavender robe. "This chapter may start out cheerful enough, but then ending tone will carry on for quite a while. It'll be hard on Neko, Anzu, Takeo, but they need to struggle through this."  
  
Another woman steps out of the shadows. "Lily, get to the point." She swings her sword for emphasis.  
  
Lily smiles sadly at you. "Well, since Ember's being impatient, Alana wants you all to read this and tell her what you think. This includes the next few chapters as well."  
  
Ember speaks again. "If the overall non-spooky, if slightly odd, air of the stuff before this is your cup of tea, go read Flowers. From now on, this will be certified creepy and frightened."  
  
"And who said that the light is in every child's heart?" With these parting words, Lily walks into the shadows.   
  
The muse left with you glares fiercely. "Alana's put her heart into THIS story, people, not those that get the reviews like Yaoi Horror and Kingdom Hearts: The Musical. If you don't like this, fine. But I'm sure that more than three people have read this. Next time anyone out there even touches a chapter, I want you to TELL US ABOUT IT. We don't pay, so we don't have a hit tracker. At least say 'I read this, and liked it/ didn't like it.'" Her eyes soften slightly. "This has been Alana's soul for a while now, and I've been bumping elbows with Neko and Anzu since February. So please, don't make this for nothing, okay?"  
  
Ember nods to you and follows Lily. ~~  
  
THANKS:  
  
Ozric 750 (If you actually read this, Ozric, this is the last time I'll put it up for a while.)  
  
Cloud-123 (Thanks for the compliment! ^^ Warms me, heart and soul.)  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Demi: Part Three  
  
Half-believed   
  
*********************  
  
~ A small garden full of flowers on one of the outside balcomnies  
  
Aerith smiles as she smells one of her flowers. :: This one reminds me of Neko. :: The flower is a light, cheerful lavender, the frilly petals edged pink. But the smell is sharp and green, totally opposite to its appearance. One of her own strains.  
  
She stands from her kneeling position, looking around the small garden. Her pride and joy.   
  
:: Listen to me think, :: she thinks wryly. :: I sound like I'm talking about my kid, not my garden. ::   
  
Aerith starts to walk back to the castle, pausing to smell the lilacs and star jasmine, her two favorites.  
  
If you don't count the rest of the flowers. Those are also her favorites.  
  
She turns towards the castle again, smiling slightly and a bit distant. After Cloud had heard about her meeting with Neko, he's gotten all guilty because he's attacked the two experiments, one of which he was sure was Neko, and all that stuff.  
  
Because she's thinking about Cloud, Aerith is almost oblivious to her surroundings. In fact, it isn't until Anzu talks to her that Aerith notices Anzu at all.  
  
"What are those?" The diminutive girl tilts her head curiously.  
  
Aerith jumps, not quite expecting a kid with WINGS to show up. Actually, not expecting a kid at all. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I'm an ambassador for us." Wide blue eyes blink up innocently. "What are all those plants?"  
  
Aerith takes a deep breath and smiles shakily, still a bit startled. "That's my flower garden. Who is 'us?'"  
  
Anzu shrugs. "Me. Takeo. Neko. I'm not sure about our brother Oni, he's been haunting the lower levels for a while now." She pauses. "Did you see really Neko right after she fought Oni again?"  
  
The taller nods, for some reason trusting this tiny child. "She said something about pain-silver hair, and the first two times getting knocked out."  
  
"Ah." Anzu nods sadly. "She never tells me about her fights. I don't see why not."  
  
"What did she mean by pain silver?" Aerith kneels down to be more on Anzu's level. Anzu shrugs.  
  
"They told me not to say anything about our specialties until we had an agreement. Actually, they don't really want me to talk about Oni at all." Anzu shrugs again, her bright wings ruffling slightly. "Something about first impressions. I think they got it from the book of clichés."  
  
Aerith smiles a bit less shakily. "You only make one first impression?"  
  
"Yeah, that was it. I guess they thought that Oni being mean and calculating might give the wrong impression about them." Anzu slaps her hands over her mouth, eyes widening. "Did I just say out loud?" she wonders, slightly muffled.  
  
Aerith actually laughs. "I won't hold it against you. Most people can't pick their family."  
  
Anzu smiles a bit, lowering her hands. "Yeah, I guess not." She glances towards the castle. "You know, if Neko's watching this, she's probably ready to bash me. Not that she would, but she HATES waiting. So, let's go talk to... Whoever."  
  
"Leon would like to talk to all of you. But I think he'll settle for talking to just you." Aerith stands up and starts walking slowly towards the castle proper. "Say, you haven't told me your name."  
  
"Anzu is what Neko picked for me. I was perfectly happy with my code, though." Anzu tags along behind Aerith, occasionally fluttering her wings and lifting a centimeter above the floor for a step or two- slightly startling for Aerith. "It's nice to stretch my wings for a while. Haven't been able to do it for nearly three years." As they come to a great open area, Anzu suddenly jumps and spreads her wings out all the way, bringing them down in a powerful stroke. She glides for about five feet before landing with a whoop, settling her wings back on either side of her spine.  
  
"It's been three years since I've done THAT too!" She jumps again, but this time just spins around in midair. Noticing that Aerith is gaping at her, she tilts her head curiously to the side. "What's wrong?"  
  
Aerith shakes her head. "Nothing, just was a bit surprised." :: Not many kids can do that... But then, these kids obviously aren't very normal. ::  
  
"Oh. Okay." Anzu shrugs and flutters a step.  
  
"What are you doing as an ambassador? I mean, why are you acting as one? And why did you show up next to me?" Aerith questions.  
  
Anzu shrugs yet again, apparently a very common gesture for her. "I'm to work out when we'll come out, how you guys are going to deal with us when we live in Bastion Proper, and the stuff like that. It'll make me sound like Oni, or as Neko would phrase it, a calculating baka, but he's always the one with plans, so I guess it's unavoidable." She skip-flaps up some steps and into the lift shop. "And you, well, Neko liked you, and you're not a fighter- you're a healer. So you're not as likely to attack out of reflex." Anzu's little face is suddenly grave.  
  
"Cloud attacked us. He hurt Neko and me. Takeo had to hurt him." She sighs ever so softly. "I didn't like it when that happened."  
  
Aerith sighs as she touches a transport crystal. "I didn't either. I actually scolded Cloud for being an idiot. And most of the time, I think Cloud's perfect."  
  
A giggle floats up to the woman as they appear in the elevator. Aerith glances down. "What's so funny?" she queries curiously.  
  
"You don't look like you could scold ME!"  
  
Aerith smiles. "Oh, I can be quite scary when I want to be. But that's not very often."  
  
A lull in the conversation ensues, and Aerith glances around just as they enter a wall to see Yuna and her cousin Rikku staring from another elevator. She waves cheerfully at them as they round a corner.  
  
******************  
  
~~ Ansem's laboratory  
  
Oni sits in the old, abandoned lab. The tubing, the cold stone walls, the plain wooden tables once covered by equipment are as familiar as the back of his hand and the wings on his shoulders. His hair, plain, the tri-color silver, brown, and deep red frames his pale face like a limp curtain. His eyes, dark, contemplative, a somehow sad shade of no real color, look across the room at a passage that leads deep under the castle.  
  
The boy sighs and leans against a wall, ignoring the dampness, and closes his eyes.   
  
:: What did Ansem do to me? ::  
  
Hesitantly, Oni stands and starts to walk to the passage. Pausing before it, he leans against the side of the portal, eyes still that strange color.  
  
:: Why am I this way? Why do I enjoy seeing Neko hurt? :: His thoughts pause, and he touches the slash up his leg. :: Why don't I care that I'm hurt? ::  
  
He looks down the passage, and almost against his will, starts to walk again.  
  
:: Why do I feel a need for dark? ::  
  
We can hear his soft footsteps as Oni steps through near-complete darkness. He looks back and we see the faintest yellow luminescence from his eyes.  
  
:: Why? ::  
  
A nine year old, for the briefest moment, holds the fate of worlds in his hands.  
  
He breaks them and throws them away by the simple act of turning his back to the lab and proceeding down into the darkness below.  
  
If what happened by that simple act were visible, perhaps we would have seen darkness flow out and across the room, out to the castle, and begin to make its way to other worlds.  
  
Because, sometimes, a single scratch will weaken bonds enough that they will break.  
  
TBC  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
VvVvVvVvVvVvVvV 


	10. A Scream of Wings

Gomen = Sorry  
  
Iie = No  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
The Bonds Break: Part one  
  
A Scream of Wings  
  
*********************  
  
~~ Just outside Leon's apartments  
  
"Iie..."  
  
~ You're giving me ~  
  
Aerith turns to look at Anzu. "What is it?"  
  
~ To many things, lately ~  
  
Eyes wide with fear, Anzu shakes her head in disbelief. "Iie! It's not POSSIBLE!" Her wings flex, ready to help her flee.  
  
~ You're all I need ~  
  
Needless to say, Aerith is a bit puzzled. "What's not possible?"  
  
~ You smiled at me ~  
  
Instead of answering, Anzu runs to the wall and tugs aside a panel, leaving it hanging open as she squeezes through into the passage behind it.  
  
~ And said ~  
  
She does something she rarely does.  
  
":: NEKO! ::"  
  
~ Don't get me wrong, I love you ~  
  
Halfway across the castle, Neko feels mental yell and bolts towards Anzu. After a minute, she reaches her sister.  
  
~ But does that mean I have to meet your father? ~  
  
Anzu nearly falls into Neko's arms, tears streaming down her face. She chokes out a single word.  
  
"Heartless!"  
  
~ When we are older you will understand ~  
  
Neko's eyes widen, then slit- including pupils. She looks around, and sees the wide-open panel.  
  
~ What I meant when I said ~  
  
"Anzu, is anyone out there?"  
  
"..."  
  
Taking the silence as a no, Neko nods and scrambles out, pulling Anzu with her. Aerith is still standing in the hall, but now Leon's come out of his rooms and is standing next to her.  
  
~ No, I don't think life is quite that simple ~  
  
Neko nods in an imitation of politeness after shooting a glare at Anzu and yells "Gomen! But I need to get to Takeo!" as she barrels between them.  
  
~ When you walk away ~  
  
As Neko yells for Takeo, heading in the direction of his niche, Anzu desperately flaps her wings with her footsteps in an attempt to keep up. But as hard as she tries, she starts to lag behind.  
  
~ You don't hear me say ~  
  
Neko skids to a halt at a shrill cry from behind her, and she spins.  
  
~ Please, oh baby, don't go ~  
  
A pool of darkness forming around Anzu's feet drags at her, pulls her down, and her wings beat in vain. Neko leaps to Anzu, almost showering the black with ice magicks. She claws desperately at the midnight ropes around Anzu.  
  
~ Simple and clean is the way that you're making me feel tonight ~  
  
Anzu starts to help by beating her wings, and with each beat, sparks fly out.  
  
But despite it all, the ties continue to creep up, and Anzu's desperate scream as she realizes they're fighting a loosing battle rings through the castle. Neko grinds her teeth and continues to fight darkness, even though shadows are springing up around them.  
  
~ It's hard to let it go ~  
  
"I won't give up on you!"  
  
~ The daily things that keep us all busy are confusing me ~  
  
Anzu looks out. The black has almost covered her. It's begun to boil up around Neko's feet.  
  
~ That's when you came to me and said ~  
  
"Gomen..." Anzu beats one wing out, knocking Neko away, and the darkness climbs over her head.  
  
~ Wish I could prove I love you ~  
  
"IIE!!" Wild eyed, Neko turns on the Heartless that formed behind her. Gesturing out to them, ice fills the hallway, flowing like water from her hand.  
  
~ But does that mean I have to walk on water? ~  
  
She snaps her fingers, and the ice blasts into shining dust, taking the Heartless with it.  
  
~ When we are older you will understand ~  
  
When Takeo reaches her, she's huddled in a corner, crying her heart out.  
  
~ It's enough when I say so ~  
  
In Neko's hand is clutched a single brilliant, soft feather, the color of sunset.  
  
~ And maybe some things are that simple ~  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Aerith, Leon, Sephiroth, Cloud, and Cid look up as the door to the kitchen creaks open. All of the begin to reach for their weapons, but drop there hands as Takeo walks in, half carrying Neko.  
  
He meets Leon's eyes, and half-smiles. "Bit pointless to keep hiding, ne? Especially with the Heartless back." He drops the smile- it wasn't very convincing- and takes Neko over to the fireplace. Coming back to the counter, he looks at Aerith for a brief moment. "You're the one who talked to them both?"  
  
Aerith nods. "Where's..." Takeo shakes his head. Emerald eyes meet aqua, and Aerith blanches slightly. "Oh... oh."  
  
"Could you talk to her?" he asks, looking down. "You're probably the only person who she'll talk to, beside me. And... I don't think I can talk to her. Not now."  
  
Aerith nods silently and walks over to Neko.  
  
"Er... What's your name?"  
  
Takeo blinks silently at Leon, then looks away for a long time. Looks at Cloud. "You're the one I had to knock out."  
  
Cloud looks at him. "It was you?"  
  
Takeo nods. There's a long silence. "It's Takeo."  
  
After another long silence, Leon looks piercingly at Takeo. "Do you know why the Heartless are back?"  
  
"No clue."  
  
Aerith comes back across the room. "It's shock. Survivor's guilt. Mourning. Disbelief."  
  
Takeo looks across the kitchen at his sister, sadness and pain in his eyes. :: Poor kid, :: Aerith sighs, :: he's to young to be this old. ::  
  
"Will she get better?"  
  
"Truthfully, I don't know." She sighs again. "It must have hurt alot."  
  
Cloud flinches a little. "It would have."  
  
Neko stares into the fireplace in front of her, barely hearing them. She clutches the feather.  
  
:: Anzu's gone. ::  
  
"She also drained herself of magic somehow, and that's making her weaker."  
  
:: They got her. I let them get her. ::  
  
"She may even let herself go. And that would be bad."  
  
"Especially with the Heartless."  
  
:: HEARTLESS! :: Neko looks sharply away from the fire. Aerith and Takeo both jump.  
  
"It was Oni."  
  
"Nani?" Takeo blinks.  
  
"Oni let the heartless back out. I'm sure of it."  
  
Takeo looks hard at Neko, and Aerith can't help but to notice again how old he looks. "Are you sure because you hate him or sure because you know?"  
  
"I *Know* it."  
  
Takeo nods, understanding the full implication of the words. He turns away and walks to a counter, leaning against it and obviously thinking hard.  
  
"Did you dream it or hear it?" he asks, tracing a design with his fingers on the cool marble.  
  
"Mm... A bit heard, but more I just Know." She pauses. "So, what are we going to do about it?"  
  
His aqua eyes frown down at the counter, and Aerith won't be surprised if the rock starts to smoke from the intensity of that gaze. "I hope it won't come to killing him. He's a full brother to both of us in his way, not half like you and me. But..."  
  
The trailing 'but' shakes Aerith more than the part about killing him. :: They're seven, eight years old! They're too young! ::  
  
But, that emotionless 'but' is still here.  
  
"I have no problem with that. It's his slip up, even touching her. When will we start?"  
  
TBC  
  
*************************** 


	11. Gloriosa, Generosa

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
The Bonds Break: Part Two  
  
Gloriosa Generosa  
  
*********************  
  
Hold frozen flames to your chest   
  
And drift through the blue depths of the night   
  
Torn apart by beloved pain   
  
I whisper your name to the stars   
  
A girl born painted in the red of dawn   
  
Dances in the golden autumn, making even angels jealous   
  
Freedom and yearning her only glittering crown   
  
~ English translation of Kishinda Kakera, Xenogears  
  
* * *  
  
~~ Still in the kitchen  
  
"So, how do we find him?"  
  
Takeo shrugs. "Aerith, do you have any ideas?"  
  
Aerith starts, surprised. :: Why not ask Cloud or Leon? :: "Well, I... I don't really know. Before, there was always some sort of trail I could follow. Rumors and sightings, once, another time it was a path of destruction, sometimes we had directions..."  
  
Takeo shrugs. "Nevermind. Neko will be able to track Oni." He turns to Neko. "What weapons?"  
  
"I can use my blade-fan," she replies, pulling out the dagger-looking thing and twitching her wrist so that it falls open into a quarter-circle of thin, razor-sharp blades. Aerith draws in her breath; Neko had had her hand on that dangerous-looking weapon when Aerith first saw her.  
  
Takeo nods approval and draws his own long dagger, swinging it slightly. "What about her feather?" he queries, nodding to it, still clenched in Neko's left hand.  
  
She glances down, pausing for a moment, then sheathes the blade-fan and deftly weaves the feather into her hair. "There. That should hold it." To Aerith; "Anything we forgot?"  
  
"Healing potions? Ethers? Maybe an elixir or two?"  
  
Takeo nods and taps his pocket. "I've got those. So. Ready, Neko?"  
  
Neko nods, an absolutely deadly look in her eyes. "Let's go get him."  
  
Aerith shivers. She has no doubt that Neko will try to kill her brother.  
  
It scares her.  
  
Takeo nods to Neko, and they pull open a panel in a wall of the kitchen, slipping through.  
  
"I hope they're going to be all right... I really hope so."  
  
Her sentiments are shared by everyone, except Sephiroth.  
  
* * *  
  
~~ A fork in the passages  
  
"Can you tell where he's been?"  
  
Neko nods, looking around closely and a bit tensely. "Having cat characteristics can be helpful. That way," she states, pointing to the right and going down into the bitter darkness.  
  
Takeo slides down the passage after her. "Would you like a little light?" he offers, holding out a hand.  
  
"Hai, but make it small. Your big ones make ozone, and that covers up scent."  
  
The topazes by his eyes glint momentarily, and Takeo suddenly holds a palm-full of golden-white lightning.  
  
Neko stops at another fork in the passage, looking piercingly at anything that might give her a hint of where to go. A sharp sniff, and she heads down to the left.  
  
And down.  
  
And down...  
  
"It's his old lab!"  
  
Takeo peers over her shoulder, holding his hand high and brightening the lightning to a sharp, piercing blue-white. "Demo..."  
  
Neko glances over her shoulder. "Nani?"  
  
"Is it really? I thought it was destroyed. You know, when he let himself go." Takeo shivers at the memory.  
  
"Apparently not." She heads towards the far end of the hall. "The passages to under the castle should be over here."  
  
Takeo follows her hesitantly, staring at the inky blackness his palm of brightness doesn't reach. His nerves hum.  
  
"Here it is." Neko stands before the doorframe. "Yareru ka?"  
  
"Definitely not. Well, here we go." And they walk down the passage.  
  
The drip of water. Pitted walls. A turn.  
  
They come out into a wider passage. At the end, barely touched by the neon brilliance, is Oni, seated, his arms around his legs. "Dare ka?" he whispers, blankly, his eyes fixed on the floor before him.  
  
"Neko and Takeo," the former hisses.  
  
Oni looks up. "Ah." Takeo shudders at the look his brother gives them.  
  
Oni's eyes are pure black.  
  
TBC  
  
**********************  
  
Demo: But  
  
Nani: What  
  
Yareru ka?: Are you up to it?  
  
Dare ka?: Who is it? (Dare is two syllables, da-re) 


	12. Ne Me Mori Facias

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
The Bonds Break: Part Three  
  
Ne Me Mori Facias  
  
*********************  
  
~~ Under the castle.  
  
Pure black. Not just the pupil and iris, every part visible.  
  
Neko hisses in surprise. Oni blinks at her. "Nani?"  
  
"Look in a mirror." Takeo steps slowly forward, disbelieving, with these word. ::Neko said she knew he did it, but... but... ::  
  
Oni nods. "A physical side-effect, ne?" His voice, distant, detached. The barest hint of curiosity creeps into his voice. "Tell me, where's Anzu?"  
  
Both Neko and Takeo stare. Oni looks at them, and then his obsidian eyes widen.  
  
"Oh." A tinge of regret slips into his voice. "She was always nice to me, even when afraid of me." He sighs. "Well, let's get this over with." He hoists himself to his feet and turns to one side, pushing a door open and slipping through it. Takeo glances nervously at Neko, who glances back.  
  
"Well? What are we waiting for?" She walks silently forward. "Let's go get him."  
  
Takeo looks nervously at the door, unconsciously brightening the lightning even more. He sighs, and follows Neko. As they pass through the doorframe, Neko gasps.  
  
Before them is a normal, dank stone passage. But at the end of it is a tall, graceful, beautiful double door. A dark wood of some kind, edged with ivory swirls and slashes of deep blue, and ever-so-slightly ajar. Oni stands before it, a statue gazing at the tiny gap in between the two doors.  
  
"Well, here we are." He stands still, his voice emotionless. "The battle between siblings." He turns his head just enough to glance at them from the corner of his eye. "I'm not really ready. But then, I wasn't really ready for anything, despite plans." He turns completely to face them, but lowers his face, his hair veiling his jet black eyes. A sigh drifts down the passage to Neko and Takeo. "Well, here we are."  
  
Neko silently slides the blade fan out of its sheath, twitches her wrist, and presses the catch as it slides open. Oni looks up at her and draws his own weapon of choice, a short, slim dagger. Takeo sighs as well and draws his dagger.  
  
"Well, here we go." And with a shaky hand, Takeo throws the lightning at Oni.  
  
Oni brushes it away like it's a lightning bug. "Not working." He points the tip of his dagger at the two, and a ball of darkness wells up around them, crushing them to their knees.  
  
Grinding her teeth, Neko yells and breaks out of the Gravity, diving at Oni. He steps to the side, but she twists as she passes him and scrapes his chest open. As Oni glances down in surprise, Takeo shoots another bolt at him.  
  
Oni winces as it hits him full in the face, and sweeps his dagger down, blocking a slice from Neko towards his chin. A dark blue energy gathers around the short blade, and Oni's wings burst out. A filmy dark haze spreads from them, and the shadowy forms sweep around him and Neko, forming into a impossible coal-black wall of swirling energy.  
  
Takeo falls back, rubbing his overused hand, and watches the energy screen for any way he can break in to help Neko.  
  
***  
  
Neko glares at Oni, amethyst eyes hard as their color. "I hate you."  
  
Oni looks back, his obsidian eyes emotionless, but what else could they be? "I know."  
  
Neko snarls savagely, breaking from the knife lock, and drives her foot and her magic into Oni's stomach. He stumbles back against the energy, then lunges forward, dripping blood from his chest, slashing with a vengeance quicker than Takeo's magic.  
  
Neko winces as he slashes her arm across the older scab, opening a x of freely flowing scarlet. Oni stabs at her, and Neko dances back against the black, bringing her blades up to defense.  
  
She hastily forms a bandage of ice around her arm, sending a few shards at Oni. He dodges and they splinter on what might as well be basalt. Neko dives forward while he's still moving to the side, opening a huge slash in his leg. He drives his knife into her own leg with the help of a small Gravity.  
  
They fall back, panting. Oni's barrier grows translucent, power beginning to drain. Neko wrenches the knife out of her leg, throwing it over the top edge of the barrier. Oni watches it fall and clatter on the ground.  
  
He turns to Neko.  
  
"Well, you've disarmed me. But I don't really need that." And saying so, he casts Demi.  
  
Neko pants as she pushes against it, trying to break free, to stand up to it. She glares out of the ball of dark energy. After long moments, it dissolves into nothing.  
  
Two of the blades on Neko's fan crack apart.  
  
Panting, not realizing that her weapon's broken, or maybe not careing, she flies back into the fight, each blow, scratch, slash, followed by a blast of icy splinters. Oni pants unevenly, only rarely hitting his raging sister.  
  
Suddenly stopping, she closes her eyes, concentrateing. Oni falls back, gasping in pain, blood smeared over all of him.  
  
Holding out a hand, a globe of cold surrounds Neko. Her hair flares around her, and specks of ice dance in the wind that blows out from her palm. Oni stumbles a step back from the force of that gale.  
  
Under his feet, ice crystals form, and grow up, trapping his legs in a freezing lock. He looks about wildly, searching for a way out.  
  
Neko looks out from the fading globe, hesitates, and pauses.  
  
Oni's eyes fade out of pure black to a pure crystal blue, a shade he rarely lets out.  
  
His eyes belie his calm, accepting voice. "You're going to do it."  
  
Neko views him, her own eyes dead except for the tears she's kept hidden and suppressed. "Hai." That one word, for some reason, is incredibly hard to force out.  
  
Oni looks down and murmurs something under his breath.  
  
She snaps her fingers.  
  
Oni smiles shakily at her. "Gomen..." And the ice bursts into glittering shards, throwing him back, enveloping his body. The barrier disappears with Neko's view of her older brother, and she falls back into Takeo's arms.  
  
"Is he gone?"  
  
Takeo squints through the gale in front of the door at her shaky inquiry. "H... Hai."  
  
"Good." Straightening up, Neko brushes off the ice remaining around her arm, her eyes unreadable. "Let's get out of here."  
  
Takeo nods in full agreement, and they turn to leave.  
  
* Wait. *  
  
They both swivel at the misty voice, eyes searching behind them.  
  
* It hasn't been sealed yet. *  
  
Where the gale was swirling just moments before, a slight wispy thread of dark fog swirls and vanishes. The doors still stand, pristine in ebony wood and pale ivory, and slightly open.  
  
* Call out, Neko. *  
  
She freezes. "Nani? Call out to what?"  
  
* Call out. *  
  
Neko tilts her head. Then, feeling what she has to do, she closes her eyes.  
  
Before her left hand, a pale energy starts to form. Takeo stares at it, eyes wide, and he fails to notice the darker glow by her right hand in the dim light.  
  
A keyblade of the lightest cream forms in her left hand, a ruby heart at the base of the hilt sprouting wing the color of flame, arching over Neko's hand, and feathers the same hue fall delicately into brilliant prongs. Anzu's feather disappears from Neko's hair and swings on a fine copper chain from the handle.  
  
In her right hand, a dark grey keyblade appears suddenly, the sharp prongs pure black touched with ragged red. Two prongs burst from a dark blue diamond and slash on either side of the paler grey swirled handle, and a single downward sweeping spike adorns the edge opposite the prongs. A quarter of the way up is a brilliant red x-shaped slash.  
  
The keychain is a black heart, a blood-red flower on one side with cracks running out from it and meeting on the other.  
  
* Well. * The voice, tinged with something hard to define, brushes past them. * Seal it. *  
  
Neko, eyes still closed, points the dark keyblade at the double doors. They creak closed, and with a soft click, they lock.  
  
A violin plays slowly, softly, a heat-breaking tune, trailing off into nothing.  
  
The keys vanish from Neko's hands, and she falls into Takeo's arms, crying. "Th... They're gone..."  
  
:: I killed them both... ::  
  
Takeo shakes his head, stroking his sister's hair. Her arm and leg bleed unnoticed.  
  
"I killed them both..."  
  
"No, you didn't." Neko looks blindly up at him, eyes bloodshot. "He killed both her... And himself."  
  
TBC  
  
********************  
  
End part three. Review, please. 


	13. Only me, Alone: Six Years Later

DISCLAIMER: If it was in a book, game, anime, cartoon, movie, or anything else (Besides this fanfiction) I don't own it.  
  
Yep, there's more! ^_^ I already wrote this chapter, but the computer it was saved on died before I could upload it, so I'm hopeing to re-write it without too many changes, except for the better. However, this computer doesn't have spell-check. Bleg. *Makes a face* I'll do my best...  
  
Takes place about six years after the previous chapter. Which means Neko's thirteen, Takeo's fourteen, Oni would be fifteen, and Anzu would be a mere twelve.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part One  
  
Only Me, Alone  
  
*********************  
  
~~ Outside Leon's rooms  
  
Takeo knocks on the oak door. Shifting restlessly and his eyes dark with worry, he runs his free hand through his hair. The other hand holds a plain bit of folded paper, thith the name 'Aerith' written across the outside.  
  
After a long moment, Leon cracks the door open and and looks out at the teen. "What's up?"  
  
Takeo lifts up the note. "Neko's gone."  
  
"What do you mean, gone?" Leon opens the door all the way.  
  
"Gone, as in absent from the castle. Dissapeared. Away from her home." Takeo runs his hand through his hair again. "Thought I should let you know before takeing this down to Aerith."  
  
Shaking his head, Leon grabs his short jacket from the chair it was draped over, pulling it on as he closes the door to his room. "Let's go."  
  
*******  
  
~~ Worlds Away...  
  
"Damn."  
  
The figure swears dispasionately to his knees, head buried in his arms as he crouches in the corner of the small, bare room. His mostly silver hair gleams dully in the little light leaking into the room, and as he lifts his head, his glowingly yellow eyes catch that light.  
  
He stands, leaning against one cold stone wall, his heavy grey coat drapeing over his thin figure. "Of course. I hate this." His hands shake slightly as he pushes away from the wall. "I really... I hate this."  
  
Picking up a black strip of cloth from the ground next to the door, he binds it over his brilliant, emotionless eyes, and runs his hands through his hair, an expression of concentration comeing across his face as it ripples into a plain chestnut brown.  
  
"I hate..."  
  
He pushes open the door and walks through it.  
  
*******  
  
~~ Aerith's rooms  
  
Takeo looks worridly at Aerith. "What does it say?"  
  
Aerith passes the note to him, her normaly cheerful face solom. "Read it yourself."  
  
~ Dear Aerith,   
  
I'm sorry about leaving you, and Lani, and Takeo, but I had to. You know that Destiny-voice thing that we can hear? Well, he told me what I have to do, sort of, and, well... I sort of have to go find my parents, and the Door, and I can't do it from the Bastion. Sorry. I know I'm awful with writing this stuff, but I need to tell you not to worry about me. And tell Takeo too, he worries too much as it is.  
  
Neko ~  
  
He leans back against the door, tosses the note to Leon, and rubs his hands over his face. :: She's going after our parents? But... I never told her! She has no idea who our parents are! Only I know!:: He glances guiltily at Aerith. :: I should have told her, at least. She wouldn't hold it against us.:: He runs one hand through his hair. :: And Neko didn't even mention this! She didn't even ask for help... And I hear the voice too, don't I? Why didn't he say anything to ME? ::  
  
:: I do hear him...::  
  
*******  
  
~~ Worlds away...  
  
"I hate rain." Neko pulls up the hood of her oversized grey coat against the drizzle. "I really, REALLY hate rain."  
  
She looks around at the totally unfamiliar landscape she appeared in- more specifially, at muddy, grassy hills and a faint dirt path. Sighing, Neko starts towards the path.  
  
"But then, of couse it's raining. What epic quest doesn't at some point have the haunted hero walking alone in the rain?" She pulls the coat closer around her and the hood farther forward, and sighs again. "Well, there was that one, but the hero wasn't really haunted by his past- he was haunted by thick-headedness. But then, he was a boy."  
  
Pausing for a moment and glanceing up, she mutters "Naze tomatte kurenai ka?" in the most annoyed voice you ever heard.  
  
She sighs once more and walks along the muddy, ill-kept path, talking softly to herself for next half-hour or so. She probably would have kept walking longer, except the rain stopped and the cloud cover broke apart.  
  
"Well, finally. I hate rain." She pulls off her coat and shakes it out for a moment, then spreads it on a flat rock next to the road to dry a bit. Then, summoning her darker keyblade, she begins to practice.  
  
After a bit of normal-speed swinging in random directions and a few practice blocks against nothing, Neko speeds up to full pace- the sort of speed that her assorted teachers had trouble blocking, for all that they had all participated in the saveing of various worlds. After a bit, she slows down again, summoning what she generally thinks of as Anzu's keyblade and working on her skills with both of them at once.  
  
After a bit of pattern-swinging, thrusting, and blocking, she sighs, dismisses the keyblades, and picks up her coat again.  
  
"I really need a live opponent to practice. I with Cloud was here. Or Takeo-niisan. Or even Yuna- she's fairly good at blocking, if not attacking." She rubs her lavender-leather choker. "Why the heck did I set off on a quest to save the universe from the forces of evil without bringing Takeo along?"  
  
She suddenly stops, looks about three feet in front of her, and tells no one, "Don't awnser that."  
  
Naturally, she jumps when an unfamilliar and amused voice comments "I wasn't going to."  
  
********************  
  
Naze tomatte kurenai ka?: Why won't it stop?  
  
Yes, an unfamiliar and amused voice! Comments out of nowhere! Oh, the suspence! *Laughs maniacaly*  
  
Readers: *Edge away*  
  
*Pokes 'readers' and blinks* I have readers? I wouldn't think I have them, they never reveiw... *Hinthint* Well, feel free to ask any question 


	14. Broken

Thanks, ShiAne, Gypsy, and Maji! I'm glad you guys have been reading & likeing this!  
  
Note: Some actions on a certain person's part may seem like he's atracted to Neko. HE IS NOT. He's married with kids, for goodness sakes! He's at least three times her age!   
  
Dis: If it's not Neko, Oni, Takeo, Anzu, an OC, or something I thought up on my own, I don't own it.  
  
Note: The first segment isn't SUPPOSED to be labeled with a place, setting, or anything else.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Two  
  
Broken  
  
*********************  
  
:: It hurts, how it hurts- DON'T STOP, EASE THE PAIN- I can't stand this, hurting them to stop how I hurt- YOU KNOW YOU ENJOY IT- I don't, it hurts whatever I have left of a heart- YOU HAVE NO HEART, YOU NEVER DID- I did, I wasn't always like this, I remember- Aah!- YOU CAN STOP IT, YOU KNOW- I won't! I won't...-YOU WILL. YOU HAVE TO.-...I have to...-YOU WILL.-I will... Why will I?- TO STOP YOUR PAIN- What? But what about other people's pain?- YOU DIDN'T CARE BEFORE- I didn't know anyone. -YES YOU DID.- But I thought they wouldn't be hurt!- THEY WERE.- But I didn't do it!- YES YOU DID. YOU HURT THEM ALL.- I hurt them all?... -REMEMBER?- Yeah. And now... I hurt too... -YOU CAN STOP IT. YOU KNOW HOW.- Hai... I know how...- STOP IT. STOP DENIEING. YOU WILL DO IT.- You're right... Because I have to, don't I?- OF COURSE YOU HAVE TO. IT'S WHO YOU ARE.- Even though I don't want to be who I am...::  
  
*******  
  
~~ With Neko, on... Some world... That shall be reavealed soon... By the end of this chapter, hopefully.  
  
"Who's there?" Neko's claws come out, and her eyes narrow. A chuckle floats through the air to her, and the most weasle-like man she's ever seen slips out of the cover of a hill no taller than Neko herself. His bright, beady eyes examine her movemnets keenly from either side of a long, pointed nose, and her grins sardonically.  
  
"Prince Kheldar of Drasnia at your service," he introduces himself with a courtly bow and a self-mocking tone of voice, "but you can call me Silk. And you are?..."  
  
Relaxing slightly, Neko bows slightly back. "Neko."  
  
Silk grins at her. "You are the stragest looking person I have ever seen. And I can't seem to pin down your natonality." Waveing a hand dismissively, he totally ignore that statement. "So, why are you wandering around in the wilds of the Isle of the Winds?"  
  
"Didn't you hear what I said?"  
  
Silk chuckles. "What, about saveing the universe? It's been saved for the last time. I should know. I was there."  
  
Neko Looks at him. "I wasn't kidding. I'm on a quest to find my parents, the Door to the Light, and save the univere by doing so."  
  
*Kitten, please stop talking about this so freely... Silk is alright, considering he's a spy, assasin, and theif, but don't go around telling just anyone about this.*  
  
Neko blinks. "You're a spy, theif, and assasin?"  
  
Silk blinks back. "Of course. I'm Drasnian. ... Who told you?"  
  
"Er, um... Nobody?" Neko sweatdropps and smiles. :: I'm guessing he (The voice) wouldn't want me to talk about him either...::  
  
"Riiiight. Well, would you like me to get you to Riva?"  
  
"Sure..."  
  
*******  
  
"Takeo-sempai? What's wrong?"  
  
Takeo smiles at Aerith's little golden-haired daughter. "Nothing, Lani-chan. I'm perfectly fine."  
  
Lani crosses her arms and pouts. "You may be, but something's wrong. I haven't seen Neko for days. And the Bastion can't find her."  
  
Wincing, Takeo looks down. :: Sometimes I wish she hadn't inherited Aerith's ability to talk to the planet.:: "Promise you won't tell your mom I told you?"  
  
She nods gravely. "Yep."  
  
"Neko went off to find our parents and the Door to the Light. Recently she's been sorta-seeing little rips in space, mostly around the teleport crystals, and seemingly connected to her Keyblades. And, then, she dissapeared into thin air, and just left a note saying not to worry." Takeo shrugs.  
  
"You're worried anyway."  
  
"Yeah..." He nods, looking at nothing. "Yeah, I am."  
  
"Don't worry, Takeo-sempai. I'm still here." She crawls up onto his lap, her ernest, brilliant pansy-blue eyes half closed. "I'll be here for forever."  
  
Takeo smiles sadly and puts his arms around the four-year-old as she cuddles closer.  
  
*******  
  
~~ The wonderous, glourious world of David Eddings that Neko is currently inhabiting.  
  
"Ara..." Neko stares blankly at Riva, the only city in the Isle of the Winds, and one of the larger citys in this part of the world.  
  
Silk smiles slightly at her. "It's just a little place some of my friends like to call home."  
  
"It's AMAZING. It's... That building right there is as big as the entire Hallow Bastion and Riseing Falls TOGETHER. It's... wow." She shakes her head, as if to clear it. "It's beyond amazeing." Looking more closely, she blinks. "And it's the most intelligent desine I've ever seen. If the other side doesn't have wings, it would be a hell to attack. It's genious."  
  
Silk chuckles. "Then why don't you follow me? I'm sure Garion would like to talk to you, and you can look around while we're going to the Great Hall."  
  
*******  
  
~~ The grassyworld you see in the not-secret ending.  
  
"Let's take a break."  
  
Donald and Goofy nod at the young man's suggestion, and they sit down by the side of the road in this strange, endless grassland.  
  
A tall, thin, elfish man walks over a hill towards Sora, Donald, and Goofy. His brushed-back dark blond hair swings just past shoulders, some falling in front of his pale face and reddish eyes.  
  
They just sit, talking quietly. They ignore the man until he stops by them, standing quietly untill they are all looking at him. He looks calmly at Sora.  
  
For all that this world is inhabited (if rather sparsely), no one ever stops to talk to Sora and co. without being approached first.  
  
Sora looks waily back into his thin, slanted, wide-set eyes, the pupils amazeingly thin, the irises the color of dried blood, what would normaly be white a dark orange- the same color as the man's loose, long-sleaved shirt.  
  
"You are Sora?"  
  
Sora nods.  
  
The man smiles ever so slightly, "Good. I can help you travel between worlds without breaking the barriers, leaving them still up. And you're going to need to, soon." His soft, whispery voice seems oddly familliar to Sora.  
  
Donald eyes him suspiciously. "How do we know you're not lieing?"  
  
"You don't. But I'm going to have to get you to other worlds, weather you like it or not. Disney Castle is in serious danger, Donald, Goofy. And Sora, other worlds need your help soon.  
  
"So, will you take my help?"  
  
*******  
  
Ara: Oh my  
  
And I finally finished that chapter! Hurrah! This took forever, and I still haven't gotten to finish the next three chapters of Look the Other Way... But now that this is finished, I can! ^_^  
  
Quatre: What about Pale Night, Flowers, KH: TM, YH, BT, and Oro?  
  
*Flinches* You had to remind me... *Grumble* Well, reveiw, please. 


	15. A Place Unkown

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HARRY! *Glomps Harry Potter* Have some grass Every Flavor Beans! They're good! ^__^  
  
No reveiws. No one to thank. *Sniff* 8_8  
  
NOTES: From now on, I will refer to the worlds people are on by a) A name, if it has one, or b) the name of the series/book/game/anime/ect. that it's from. For example, the world Neko is on will be refered to as 'Belgariad'. (If a world has multipul series, I will use the best name- like Begariad insted of Malloreon)  
  
QUIZ! ^___^ Take it and see who YOU are! Made it myself, and the results 'Anzu' and 'Neko' have pics! I'm working on a Takeo one right now. "http://quizilla.com/users/AlanaHikariChan/quizzes/Which%20Character%20from%20Experimental%2C%20a%20Kingdom%20Hearts%20fanfic%2C%20are%20you%3F"  
  
'Japanese' is known as 'Nihongo'. Which is Japanese for 'Japanese Language'. Japanese people are 'Nihonjin.'  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Three  
  
A Place Unknown  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~FLASHBACK~~~~~  
  
"Oni?"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You won't let Ansem hurt us, right?"  
  
"That's right, Takeo."  
  
"Good. I don't want Anzu-chan of Neko-chan hurt."  
  
"No one will get hurt, Takeo. I'll make sure of it."  
  
"Even though Ansem's gone, he's still here."  
  
"... Yeah..."  
  
"I wonder what he looks like?"  
  
"... Hmm..."  
  
"Will you help me with this book I found? It's really neat, but it has a lot of hard words."  
  
"Okay, Takeo."  
  
"Thanks, Oni! You're my favorite niisan ever!"  
  
"I'm your only niisan, silly."  
  
"You're still my favorite."  
  
"... Thank you."  
  
*******  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
Neko slips on a smooth, round pebble, scraping her hands on the rough gravel of the road as she slaps the ground to stop any damage.  
  
"KUSO! Kred, eteud-baka-nadynt pebble!" Standing up, she raises an eyebrow at the raised eyebrow adorning Silk's face. "What?'  
  
"Just..." He grins. "Intresting swear words."  
  
"Oh. That." She smile ruefully. "Nihongo, I've always known, and Al Bhed I learned from a friend of mine. I probably shouldn't swear so much, and both Yunie and Aerith have scolded me about it, but I spend so much time with Cid, Leon, and Cloud that they shouldn't even bother." Frowning a little, she sweeps some of her more wild bangs to the side. "I wonder how Takeo's holding up. I should have given more warning... He's tough. He can take it."  
  
*... Kitten, I know you never learned to watch your mouth, but... Please... You don't need to spill every moment of your life on the drop of a coin.*  
  
Neko blushes slightly at the pained tone of the voice. "Er, sorry for chattering, Silk. All the girls back home were all for talking openly about everything." She rubs the back of her neck under her braid in mild embarrasment. Silk grins.  
  
"Oh, it's just fine. I've known a few people who talk so crypticaly that you can't make heads or tails of what they mean, people who shower you with thees, thous, and forasmuches, and people who don't talk period. It's nice to have normal company for once." They walk up to a small iorn gate in the back of the city, the guards takeing a quick looks at Silk before letting them go through.  
  
"Now, I wouldn't say that I'm NORMAL, exactly." Neko grins slightly at Silk before looking avidly around at the strange city. ::Thanks and gomen, voice.::  
  
The voice remains silent.  
  
*******  
  
Note: In this next part, I know I plagurized from Fantasy Thunder. Just consider it a compliment of the highest form to that wonderful FF cross-over. ^_^;;  
  
*******  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
"I heard that Neko went off on her own."  
  
Takeo jerks slightly at the unexpeted voice, then relaxes slightly as he turns to nod to Sephiroth. "Yeah."  
  
"How are you takeing it? You two are pretty close."  
  
"Mmm..." Takeo shrugs. "I'll be fine."  
  
Sephiroth raises an eyebrow sceptically, but lets it pass. "Don't do anything silly, Takeo. Remember what I told you?"  
  
Takeo smiles wryly. "There are three things in life that kill you- Stupidity, treachary, and midless drones. You were killed by Cloud, AKA a mindless drone."  
  
"Good boy. You remembered. I was also killed by my stupidity- thinking I could really become a god, quite impossible, I see now- and by treachary, that of the traitors who ran from trouble." He smiles rather ruefuly. "Cloud still won't let me meet his daughter, you know." Sighing, he shrugs.  
  
Takeo smiles encourageingly at Sephiroth. "Well, at least me and Neko know you're not still bad. And us experiments have to stick together."  
  
Letting out a short laugh, Sephiroth walks down the hall away from Takeo. Wandering in the other direction, Takeo doesn't even notice that he's heading towards Neko's room until he's standing in front of the door.  
  
Blinking, he shakes his head, shrugs, pushes the door open, and looks around.  
  
In one corner of the silver-and-lavender themed room are the weighted practice weapons Neko uses, the throwing knives, and her supply of healing potions. Right next to them, the white-painted bed with its silvery comforter remains unmade, as always. On the other side of the bed is Neko's bookcase, the top two shelves covered with little knick-knacks and junk. In the very corner is the mahogany roll-top desk Aerith dug out from an unkown corner of a storage room, open and also mostly covered with junk except for the very center, where Neko's journal resides. The next wall is taken up by a large window, looking out on Riseing Falls, with a crystal suncatcher hanging in front of it, casting rainbows over the room in the late afternoon sun. The one wall left is dominated by a large closet, the door hanging open to reveal the chaos within, Neko's random sketches pinned around it against the almost-lavender wall.  
  
Takeo sighs, and again without thinking walks to between the bed and the bookcase, fingering the hidden latch to open the panel there. He slips quietly through the passeges, his slim frame easily fitting through the narrower areas, untill he reaches where Oni used to sleep, six years ago.  
  
With a shock, Takeo realizes they never came back to see what he might have left.  
  
The small, bare cubby, lined on the floor with fliched blankets, has only three things in it. A small, leather-bound grey book, the bookmark halfway hanging out, a spare dagger, and a black journal. The latter is what draws Takeo's attention. Picking it up, he begins to read.  
  
Nearly an hour later, he closes it with a snap, leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. His hands tremble faintly as he sets the journal to the side.  
  
"Kami-sama..." he says, barely breathing the oath, his voice cracking. "Why didn't I *see*?..."  
  
A wave of tiredness sweeps over him, and he drops off to a troubled sleep.  
  
And, once again, he dreams.  
  
***************************  
  
Y'know, I think this is my best chapter so far. And I'm leaving for California tomorrow. I don't know how much I'll be able to update in the twoo weeks I'll be gone, so don't hold your breath. I wouldn't want to lose some readers to suffocation. And, as always, reveiw. It might get me to write faster. 


	16. To The Wall

Well, I'm starting this at my aunt's house, the day after I posted my last chapter. This computer has a very slow connection.*Face* Ah well.  
  
And it's now been a week since I started this chapter. I would like to mention that Sora may seem very different, with fewer illusions about how much power dark and evil has, less trustful, and in ways he is darker himself, but he still believes there is some good in everyone, and that light is the most powerful thing existent. So he may have changed, but his outlook hasn't by much.  
  
Thanks to:  
  
Soraoathkeeper (*BlinkBlink* Well, thanks for all the encouragement.*Blink* I'm glad you liked it enough to review every chapter.)  
  
**************  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Four  
  
To the Wall  
  
**************  
  
~~~~~ Dreamscape  
  
@I've found out why the boy has been seeing into your experiment- universes.@  
  
*Really?*  
  
^Please do tell.^  
  
Takeo only recognizes one of the wispy voices sweeping past him in this strange, uncertain landscape.  
  
@It was this moment- Just after the first was born. We might have missed it /because/ the first was just born.@  
  
As the voice speaks the last sentence, the area around Takeo darkens, rising up, forming into the familiar location of Ansem's lab, as it was some fourteen years ago.  
  
Large, plain wooden tables stretch across the room to Takeo's left, covered in vials and papers and books, and to his right four clear tubes, two feet around and two feet tall, capped on the top and bottom with the coppery metal found throughout the Bastion, nestled in a sea of wiring, tubeing, and tiny monitors. Three of them have something in them. Takeo realizes with a mental shudder, as he has no body, that they are him- Neko- Anzu.  
  
Directly before him, quietly flipping through a thick book at his main work table, is Ansem.  
  
Quietly letting his awareness float forward, Takeo looks over Ansem's shoulder, reading a segment of the text from the large, dusty tome before Ansem sighs and closes it.  
  
...The sample reacted positively to the subject, and the subject soon began to notice things beyond normal. This was most evident in the subject's rest periods, where it was most relaxed.  
  
Ansem walks over to the equipment-covered tables, picking up a small bottle, and goes to one of the inhabited tubes. Fishing out a clear line, he drips a little into the end, holding it up so the clear amber liquid runs down and into the tube.  
  
* I see...*  
  
*******  
  
~~~~~ Kairi's shack, Destiny Island.  
  
"Kairi?"  
  
Kairi turns to smile at the young girl standing in the doorway of her little shack. "Yeah, Anzu?"  
  
"Could I borrow your brown skirt for tomorrow? It's Tina's birthday..." Anzu widens her bright blue eyes in an adorable puppy-dog look, making Kairi laugh.  
  
"Sure, go ahead. I'd wear your caramel-gold halter top with it."  
  
"I was planning to." Anzu flashes a grin as she heads to Kairi's closet, swinging the plain driftwood door closed behind her. "Are you coming? I heard from Selphie that one of her friends asked you to. And Tina would love it."  
  
"Mmm." Kairi wavers a hand in a maybe, maybe not sort of way. "I'm not going to go with Rufus do go, but I would like to see Tina again. She's so different from her mom."  
  
"Well, think about it. Rufus is cute, and you're already twenty-three." Anzu pulls out the flowing knee-length skirt, folds it over her arm, and walks to the door. "Ja, Kairi!"  
  
"See you around, Anzu." Kairi turns back to her work table, continuing to string together her shell necklaces famed across the entire island.  
  
*******  
  
Sora gasps for breath, half-bent, as the strange man stands nearby, unaffected by the jerk of nausea rolling through Sora's body.  
  
The man absently straightens the strangely loose sleeves of his terra-cotta shirt, adjusting his buff bag slung over one shoulder and sweeping his tawny and russet hair back. Only then does he notice Sora's discomfort.  
  
"Oh." The man strides quickly over to Sora, a vaguely startled look on his face. "I'm sorry. I forgot to warn you."  
  
Sora sips from a bottle of green liquid he pulls out of his pocket, and straightens almost immediately. He also notices immediately two rather conspicuous absences.  
  
"Where are Donald and Goofy?!" he exclaims, quickly Scanning the strangely blank and dark landscape around him. Almost unconsciously, he summons his Ultima Keyblade, moving into a fighting stance. "Tell me where they are, right now!"  
  
"They're safe, Sora, you don't have to worry about them." The man tries to give Sora a reassuring expression, not succeeding because of his unsettling features. "I sent them to where they're needed most. Could you put your weapon away? It's straining reality."  
  
Sora blinks, a rather mistrustful frown stealing across his face, but lets the cream and gold blade disappear from his hand. His deep blue eyes glare out from under his chestnut bangs. "Where ARE we? Who are you? What are we doing here?" he asks, his still young-seeming voice sharp.  
  
"Don't worry, Sora." The man takes a deep, steadying breath. "You have changed, haven't you? Sit down." The man does so as an example, and Sora copies him. "We are in a... A transition world, if you will. Only a few people... Let me put it this way. You know that there are normaly barriers between worlds?"  
  
Sora nods, and the man continues.  
  
"Well, think of them as walls. A few people, like myself, have... ladders... that let you climb on top, and walk on the tops of these interconnecting walls. But it puts a great strain on the walls and us, and the more we're carrying, like you and Keyblades, the bigger strain. We are here to travel between worlds.  
  
"And you can call me... Zeff."  
  
*******  
  
::No... She CAN'T be here.- SHE'S HERE.::  
  
*********************  
  
That's a nice ending note, ne? No Neko-kun appearance, but it neatly wrapped up the mystery of how the man was going to move them to other worlds. Not who the man is, though. And there are quite a few cryptic remarks. And... YAY! ^_^ I finally got Anzu and Kairi back! ^__^ How do you like Kairi's new profession? ~_^ Nice little tie-in from Kingdom Hearts, ne?  
  
Oh, before I forget... Ja is basically a shortened for of ja ne, which is the shortened form of something else, which is a informal farewell. So "ja" and "ja ne" are basically "See ya!"  
  
And... Goodness, is this whole thing only two pages? Well, then, I have to give you wonderful people some food for thought. Analyzing people, personalities, and names!  
  
Let's start with... Sora, v2.0.  
  
Sora. Sky. The opposite of Riku's Land. We all know this, ne? And that Kairi is Shore, or Ocean, or Separation. Or some combo of those. (I have my own little theory about her name that involves all three and ANOTHER meaning, but let's forget about that. And this part is supposed to be about Sora-chan.) And we all remember cute little fourteen-year-old Game Sora, with his stubborn illusions and foolish faith...That carried him through all the confrontations, disasters, and darkness, against all odds, to the End of the World and beyond, to Kingdom Hearts itself. The unfailing glow of dawn, with none but the faintest clouds, and these just reflecting the glow ever more strongly.  
  
Now, nine years later, the sun is still there, but there is an almost constant haze of clouds veiling it, and muting its light. There still is light, but it's diffused, hazy... Not as strong as the beautiful red glow of dawn. Sora's faith has wavered, his kind, trusting innocence draining slowly away.  
  
There, I think that explains Sora's OOCness, ne?  
  
Now, let's look at Sora's closest counterpart... Takeo.  
  
"Takeo?" you ask, startled. "Why is Takeo Sora's closest counterpart?"  
  
Well, let's think about it. Strange, prophetic dreams and visions, a deep confusion about what's going on, heavy responsibility, life centered around friends or family... You get the picture, ne? Both Takeo and Sora have been left behind by someone they trusted and loved, although Neko left for light, and Riku for dark. Both have lost the little angel in their life- Anzu, Kairi- Both hear Words, (Or 'the voice') both have had Selphie, Wakka, and Tidus ask them about things, both were born in worlds chalk-full of Final Fantasy characters... I could go on forever. They really ARE father and son, aren't they? However, an odd combo of Sora's striving for good, and only good, and Riku's "Ends/Means" philosophy causes my little Takeo's slightly darker, guilt-wracked, blameful side. Takeo does all that he can on the good side, but deep down he knows that part of him wants to go straight for the gold, and who cares if Lani or Aerith or Sephiroth gets hurt as long as Neko and him are fine?  
  
He represses that part of him, but he knows it's there.  
  
Goodness, did *I* just write all that? *BlinkBlink* That makes so much sense. I was making it up off the top of my head to boost word count.  
  
Well, that's all for now! And if you want a little... er, long segment about Riku and Neko next time I update, well,  
  
Vvvv REVIEW! VvvV  
  
Appraise, analysis, assessment, evaluation, ect... 


	17. Haryuu no Hanekata

And so, part five of Kurayami begins with Neko-kun and Silk-san. At the end, Riku and Neko will be analyzed, so stick around! ^_^ And I think there will be a Zeff-like person appearing...  
  
Warning: Nutty Riku from being totally alone in Kingdom Hearts for the last six years with nothing to do, and Selphie and Tidus are married with a kid. ^^;; I'm all for Tidus/Yuna, but, well, I just can't imagine Selphie with, say, Wakka, or one of the transplanted Turks, or Rufus, or... anyone else I pick up from FFVII/FFX. Also, lots of flashback-like stuff with //double slashes// around it in Takeo's dream.  
  
Disclaimer: I own Anzu, Neko, Takeo, Oni, Lani, Tina, Scarlet's three kids, Zeff, and Anima. I do NOT own The Belgariad, Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, characters from each of these, or the song "Open Your Heart" from .hack//SIGN...  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Five  
  
Haryuu no Hanekata  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
Neko and Silk chat amiably about nothing much as they head towards the Hall of the Rivan King, although Neko herself doesn't know this. She devours the view around her with as they walk, even though only the gray facades of the buildings, the gray sky, and the gray cloaks of the Rivans greet her eyes. Neko thinks wryly that at least she doesn't stand out.  
  
"So," Neko begins, turning a bright smile on Silk, "Where are we heading? You haven't said."  
  
"Oh, just over there." Silk waves a hand at what is by far the biggest building in sight. "I want you to meet a friend of mine, Garion."  
  
*Kitten. Be wary, but don't be afraid.*  
  
Neko blinks at the sudden intrusion into her mind, and unconsciously speeds up, frowning, as she starts to pay close attention to everything around her. Silk raises an eyebrow, but follows her.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
She shakes her head, her frown deepening. "I'm not sure. But... It's something." She glances around nervously, muttering under her breath, "He wouldn't say something like that otherwise..."  
  
Silk added "Who is 'he' and what did he say, and how come I didn't hear it?" to his mental list of questions to ask later, which also included why after on mention of her sister, a unquenchable sadness rose in her eyes, only half covered by a cheerfully off-balance grin. He sped up to match Neko's pace.  
  
"Are we almost there?" Neko asks nervously, as a scent she doesn't want to recognize floats past her.   
  
Silk picks up on her uneasy edginess and nods. "Yes, but we could go faster, if you like..."  
  
"I would like very much," Neko states, and starts to jog quickly- much quicker than Silk expected, considering her short, slim stature. Once again, he speeds up to match her pace.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Dreamscape  
  
*Takeo, you can stop eaves-dropping now.*  
  
^?!^  
  
The lab fades away around Takeo, and...  
  
// "...That prohibitation was getting annoying." The nine-year-old swings his hand at his younger sister, her head snaps around, staggers, crumples to the ground. Takeo hears a faint whisper, but doesn't pay attention, staring at Neko, then at Oni, as Anzu lets out a small squeak from where she pressed herself against the wall, arms and wings wrapped around herself.  
  
"'Niisan! Where are you? Who are you?" she cries out desperately, as Oni turns his back on them, a coldness flowing almost palpably off of him. //  
  
:: Prohibitation?... What did Anzu mean, 'brother, where are you?'::  
  
// Neko stirs, Takeo still to shocked to move. She shifts her head, and her eyes open, pupils slit, she hisses, Anzu steps forward, steps back, flame-blue eyes wide and afraid.  
  
"Oneesama? What's wrong?... Why are you so frightened?"  
  
Takeo hears the whisper again, and Neko looks up, eyes widening, returning to normal in her pale, angular face. A faint red mark is visible on her cheek where Oni hit her. She smiles her empty smile, that Takeo would get to know all too well, and says that nothing's wrong...//  
  
:: Everything was wrong...::  
  
//"What're you afraid of?"  
  
"The people in the castle."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because I'm different."  
  
"So you're afraid of being different."  
  
"I guess I am."  
  
"But is being different so bad?"//  
  
::No. How much I didn't understand... They were so different themselves... Three of them are technically dead!...::  
  
@That they are.@  
  
::-!- Who are you?::  
  
@... One of the people you know/don't.@  
  
Surprise and confusion chase each other through Takeo's mind, and he opens his eyes~  
  
// He will open the door-- very near...   
  
Why are you-- Heartless?  
  
Nothing to fear.  
  
Connected-- to the darkness.  
  
Completely eclipsed  
  
Meaningless effort  
  
Understand nothing  
  
A prison  
  
Darkness is the heart's true essence!//  
  
~ with the voice of Ansem ringing in his ears...  
  
:: Something bad has happened...::  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Destiny Island  
  
"Hey, Selphie!" Anzu calls out, skip-fluttering over the sand, wearing a butterscotch-golden halter top, Kairi's flowy coconut-brown skirt, and matching necklaces, bracelets, and anklets.  
  
Selphie grins, waves, and continues to play pat-a-cake with her three-year-old daughter, the proud birthday girl. Tidus waves as well, then goes back to gazing adoringly at his wife and kid.  
  
:: Like he gazes at them any other way,:: Anzu thinks as she sends her mind out in an automatic search. :: Rufus is here, but he's a little let down- I guess Kairi turned down his date. Wakka's over there- he seems happy, and he's near... Someone I don't know so well. Elena, maybe? And there's someone else I don't know... and there are Scarlet's kids.:: She glances in the direction of the unfamiliar person, and recognizes a tall man with long black hair whom she can't remember the name of.  
  
Suddenly- out of nowhere- unexpectedly-  
  
She gets glomped by three hyper, blond, and little girls.  
  
"ANZUUU~!" the five-year-old twins cry out in unison as their little three-year-old sister simply makes the largest eyes you ever saw. Anzu laughs and hugs them back.  
  
"Sweethearts, could you get off of me?"  
  
The twins laugh and bounce off, only to grab onto Anzu's hands. "Fortunes! Anzu, tell us what our fortunes are!"  
  
Anzu laughs again. "Will you let go of me if I do?" They nod, grinning. "All righty then! Sit down, and let me see your right hands."  
  
The twins do so as their sister continues to cling to Anzu's waist. Anzu takes their hands, solemnly studying the palms as she tentatively sent her mind to theirs. She looks up and smiles.  
  
"YOU, my little sweetheart," she says, tapping the one to the left on the end of her nose, "will someday marry a handsome young man with red hair and blue eyes. I think he's over by Wakka right now." The twins glance at the six-year-old in question and giggles happily. Anzu then turns to the one on the right. "And you'll marry a brown-haired boy as cute as cute can be, if not as cute as you."  
  
The three giggle, glancing at a particular seven-year-old over in the corner, then head over to Scarlet.  
  
Anzu spends her time at the birthday party quite happily, chatting with both the older people and the younger, although the younger usually asked for short flights from a ledge, or for their fortunes told, although a few of the older asked for fortunes as well. And when everyone asks her to sing a song, she does so happily.  
  
But as always, a little worry nibbles at the edge of Anzu's mind for Kairi.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Kingdom Hearts  
  
"Riku?"  
  
~ Open your heart  
  
To eternal dimension~  
  
He slowly turns his gaze from the pool of darkness at his feet, looking blankly into narrow, slanted eyes, with deep purple cat-like pupils blending out to pale violet.  
  
"Who... are you?"  
  
His vocal chords protest the rare usage, a hoarse voice grinding out of his throat.  
  
~ Open your heart  
  
For love and affection~  
  
The tall, pale, elfish girl gestures vaguely with one hand, then lowers it back to her side to rest against her loose, dark blue pants. "I can't answer that right now. But you can call me Anima." Her dim, whispery voice floats dimly through the air.  
  
~ Open your heart  
  
Your every emotion~  
  
Riku nods blankly, turning back to the pool of ooze. "You're another voice, aren't you? Just this time I can see you. I'm going more insane, aren't I?"  
  
Anima's strange eyes blink, and she mutters under her breath, the faint sound not reaching Riku's ears.  
  
"Riku, I'm real. Nearly COMPLETELY real." She runs a hand absently through her white hair, shot with pale blue, deftly avoiding disturbing her two round buns. "More real than those voices in your head, at least."  
  
Riku turns his head back to her, aqua gaze sharp and unreadable. Then he smiles ever so slightly, nodding. "Why, I do believe you are," he whispers happily, then bursts out into insane giggling, tears streaming down his face.  
  
"I'm not alone! I'm not alone!" Riku continues to giggle, cry, and chant out those three words as Anima blinks in startlement.  
  
~ Open your heart  
  
For tears and rejection~  
  
"Come on, Riku," she says, moving forward to grasp his arm, "Pull yourself out of it."  
  
Riku stops giggleing for a moment as he stares at where her slim, delicate hand rests on his arm, them laughs and throws both arms around her neck in a joyous hug. "You're really real!"  
  
As tears stream even harder down his face, Anima hovers on the verge of just pushing him away, but something in the way he buries his face into neck like a hurt child makes her wrap her arms around him as well.  
  
"Shh, Riku, it's all right, I am real, and I can't leave you yet..."  
  
~ Come to the grace  
  
Of heaven's eternal fantasy  
  
Come to the grace  
  
Of earthly devoted harmony~  
  
*********************  
  
::It's to late for my sister to escape... Please, survive! Please- HN. STUPID LITTLE BRAT. SHE SHOULD HAVE STAYED WITH TAKEO. THEN SHE WOULDN'T BE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE THIRD WAVE.::  
  
TBC  
  
******************************************  
  
TRANSALATIONS:  
  
Niisan: Semi-respectful way of saying 'Brother'. I didn't put the 'o' in front because... Well... Calling Oni Oniisan? ^_^;;  
  
Oneesama: Most respectful way of saying 'sister' that I know of. Sama, people, not san or chan! And an o in front! How much more respectful can you get?  
  
Poor Riku-chan... And can anyone tell me who the thoughts belong to? ~_^ Well, I promised an evaluation on Riku at the end of this chapter, ne? Also on Neko, our favorite half-crazy keyblade-wielding kitten.  
  
Riku, v. c24zY  
  
Once upon a time, Riku was a confident, straightforward, rather "ends-justifies-the-means" teen. Towards the end, he was a over-confident, cruel, completely "Ends/means" teen. Ant at the very end, he was a teen who had seen too much, done too much, had too much happen to him, and leaned on the only things he could- His friendship with Sora and Kairi, and a need to fix as much as he could.  
  
Riku... is now just a little odder.  
  
Readers: *Snort* Well, duh.  
  
Basically, to protect his mind from truly bad memories, and to keep himself from going completely crazy over the last nine years, he created a few alternate personalities. Aside from being able to retreat into the back of his mind and let another take over for himself when the solitude gets too much, he can talk and argue with them in his mind so solitude DOESN'T get to be too much. I mean, there is nothing for him to do, he doesn't need to eat, drink, use the restroom, never gets tired from being awake- only if he moves around a lot- he doesn't even grow older, wear down his clothes, can't hurt himself... And he's perfectly alone, except for the rare Heartless. That's why he was so overjoyed to see Anima.  
  
He's a nutter, but that's the only reason he's not totally insane. ^_^  
  
Now, for Neko v. 0ffb414nc3  
  
Neko's also not right in the head, but she's not so bad, and she hides it better. It's... Almost like Soujiro from Rurouni Kenshin, if you know what I'm talking about. She smiles to hide her depression, her sadness, and her pain. Or talks about the weather to herself, or practices with her keyblades, or... You get the idea. Sometimes she's so cheerful, it's scarier than if she was depressed.  
  
And do you want to know why she's off balance?  
  
She lost her little sister at seven, and blames herself, and "killed" her oldest brother later that day. Also, she was created, and she was created imperfectly at that... She doesn't know who her parents are... She hears voices...Ye Gads, do you know how much in her life has been screwed up?  
  
Neko: ;_; My life has been horrible. I was created in a lab. Half my known family died because of me. I have teenage depression. I have depression from my family dying. I'm suicidal, and the only reason I don't kill myself is because I know it would shatter Takeo.  
  
Yeah, we know. ;_; 


	18. Shards of Sky

Well, here's the next part. I'm hoping to make it better than last chapter. *Eyes last chapter* ... *Smacks with Neko's Dark Keyblade, AKA Shattered Heart* Yuck. -_-  
  
Reviews: Soraoathkeeper (Oh, I'm not saying you can't LIKE her, you just don't want to BE her. ^_^ And Mickey-sama... You'll find out, oh, about five chapters from the end. Just accept that he's Not Around. ^_^;;)  
  
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the Shadow Realm, Duel Monsters, or anything else from YuGiOh. I don't own anything David Eddings has written. I don't own Kingdom Hearts, Squaresoft, Disney, or characters. I *DO* own Anzu, Neko, Anima, Takeo, Zeff, Oni, Niji, Oka, Lani, Tani, and original plot.  
  
WARNINGS: A somewhat graphic battle scene. And if you squint REAL hard, maybe some very mild DM/DMG.  
  
Note on notes: Instead of referring to those strange OC people that have appeared to Riku and Sora, and in the future to other people, will from now on be know as ENE Guides. In time, what ENE means will be revealed... In time.  
  
More ENE guides! ^_^ *Glomps the at-least-two that show up* The previous ones are OOC of what I want them to be, but these to will be beyond IC! =^_^= Kawaii... More info on David Eddings' wonderful world of the Belgariad, and an anime world or two coming in... Yugi's Duel Monsters fight, but I'm not sure about exact names of spells and such, so feel free to correct me in a review... and I'm gonna have Heartless appear! ^_^  
  
Ember: About time. I told you that you needed action. -_-  
  
Oh, hush, muse no baka. -_-  
  
Ember:...*growl*  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Six  
  
Shards of Sky   
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
:: I'm still asleep. I've got to be.::  
  
As the coppery afterglow of Dreams fades away from his aqua eyes, Takeo looks up into two long... Almost-narrow... slightly slanted eyes, shading from almost black to sky blue.  
  
"Hey, Takeo! I'm Niji!" The blond person says in a bright, cheerful, babbling-brook sort of voice, ^_^ing his heart out.  
  
Takeo blinks through his silver-streaked bangs once... Twice...Three times at the pale hand being waved in a friendly manner about two inches from his face. Takeo then raises a pale, thin hand of his own to push away... Niji's... hand, then blinks a few more times as someone else pulls the very cheerful person in red away enough so Takeo can breath again.  
  
"Niji, don't make me thwack you," says another, slightly humorous, mostly exasperated, vaguely familiar whispery voice as another, obviously older... person... with long black hair pulled into a high ponytail and grey eyes comes into Takeo's range of vision.  
  
Niji pouts just a little bit. The other person ignores it. Takeo blinks a few more times, just for good measure.  
  
"Hey, I'm Oka." Blink, blink. "I suppose you're a bit confused..."  
  
Takeo finally manages to nod, instead of blink.  
  
"That's okay, Takeo!" Niji ^_^s again. "You'll figure it out eventually."  
  
Takeo blinks.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Shadow Realm  
  
"What ARE these things?!"  
  
Dark Magician Girl's green eyes narrow in pain as one of the strange shadow-creatures takes a swipe at her leg, a multi-tone cry of pain bursting from her lips. "DARK! HELP!"  
  
The Dark Magician's indigo eyes widen, and he dives away from Gazelle, casting Dark Magic Attack to wipe the creatures away from Dark Magician Girl, throwing her a Book of Mystical Arts for a power-up. "Leave her ALONE!" he screams at the creatures, his deep voice climbing octaves as he fights, sweat plastering lavender hair to his face.  
  
Kuriboh lets out a shrill scream, blood matting its soft brown fur, as a strangely wolf-like creature bites down on Kuriboh's paw. Silverfang lets out a mournful howl as Kuriboh shatters with a agonized cry, disappearing to the Graveyard, the two lupine creatures locking into bloody combat, silver and near-black flashes of fur disappearing beneath red blood and dark smoke.  
  
The Celtic Guardian screams as he falls beneath the claws of the Heartless, Gaia falling soon afterward, Yugi's deck being eliminated card by card, the very heart of the deck soon to fall underneath those same black claws, the Shadow Realm covered in the deepest of darkness, the only light glowing yellow eyes.  
  
Somewhere, a young man with the same yellow eyes smiles at the triumph, even though in the back of his mind, the real him cries out.  
  
:: Stop controlling me! People are dying! Stop!::  
  
:: DO YOU THINK I CARE? THE DARKNESS IS ALL THAT MATTERS, NOW...::  
  
A puppet...  
  
*But aren't we all puppets of our destiny?*  
  
*********************  
  
Somewhere in a back alley of a grey city, a beautiful girl with green eyes and long blond hair wakes up, who never had a heart to be taken, but is missing something all the same.  
  
Her blue armor is incredibly heavy, and a cut just above her knee trickles blood down into her high boots.  
  
She sighs a peculiar sort of chord, her eyes dropping closed, one hand clutches around her mage's staff, the other around a round green orb that somehow comforts her.  
  
A flicker of a lavender and purple spirit flashes deep in the gem...  
  
***  
  
In Riva, no one sees the meteor shower because of the overcast sky.  
  
But Neko feels a tingle deep inside her...  
  
*********************  
  
*Puppets to our destiny... Mickey, is everyone ready?*  
  
::Soon, only three more people need to get into place. Then we can start this. But... Nami isn't so sure we should be doing this.::  
  
*Hm... She's going to be in close contact with Kairi, if we keep arrangements the same. Should we separate the two girls? We don't need anyone realizing...*  
  
:: No, we don't, but Anzu's part of the reason Kairi hasn't collapsed. And... They're both too important, right now, at the beginning of this Wave. We can't separate them. Kairi's heart has weakened too much as it is... They could both use some of the support you've been giving Neko.::  
  
*The kitten needs it more. We can't have her dying. She wields two keyblades.*  
  
^It's more than that, to you. You've gotten to close to the kitten.^  
  
*... Puppets...*  
  
*********************  
  
End Notes:  
  
o_o Poor DMG... Poor DM... I feel so sorry for them... And they're the ones that didn't get completely eliminated. KURIBOH-CHAN! 8_8  
  
Ember: -_-0 *Thwacks me*  
  
Ow... v_v... Well! ^_^ This chapter certainly was dark, ne? And it's gonna get darker! ^_^ This isn't called Kurayami for nothing. 


	19. Darkness Of Dawn

Oopsies. ^_^ I forgot to analyze Kairi and Anzu last chapter. By al rights, we should have done them, then this chapter Oni and Ansem. But to make it up to you, I'll translate the ENE guide's names, make this chapter at least 3000 words(Compared to 1000-and-a-few-more last chapter) and give every reviewer past and present a 'Shattered Heart' keychain. ^_^;;  
  
Reviewers: soraoathkeeper (Yeah, I rather liked the title myself. In fact, I like most of my titles... Well, chapter titles. Some of my stories have been horribly named. ^_^;; *Points to 'Flowers' and 'Pale Night'...*)  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own Disney or related characters, Squaresoft, the Final fantasy series or related characters, .hack//SIGN or related characters, Miru, The Belgariad/The Malloreon or related characters, Kingdom Hearts or related characters, or the Dark Magician Girl. I do own the plot, Anzu, Neko, Takeo, Oni, the ENE guides (Besides Miru) and any kids that were born since the end of Kingdom Hearts.  
  
.Hack//SIGN time: After Tsu-chan and Subaru-chan become good friends and he(?) starts to look up to her as support and a role model, but before he(?) takes her to see Aura-chan.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Seven  
  
Darkness of Dawn  
  
  
  
*********************  
  
*It's a dawn of a new journey...*  
  
:: Yes it is, Miru. Are they ready?::  
  
*No.*  
  
Mickey sighs, fingering the chain on the end of his Keyblade. ::Can't be helped, I guess.::  
  
The king feels, more than hears, Miru's agreement.  
  
"But I wonder... How much longer can the new ones go on?"  
  
*I don't know. I really don't know.*  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ The World  
  
"Subaru?" Tsukasa frowns at her, a concerned look on his pale face. "Is something wrong?"  
  
She shakes her head, blinking her gentle golden eyes. "No, I'm sure it's nothing. I just had the oddest feeling at my terminal..."  
  
Mimiru blinks. "I have a bad feeling too... I'm gonna log out, see what's up." With a jaunty wave, she heads off.  
  
Tsukasa waves a little back, sitting down on a rock. Subaru sits down beside him, taking his hand.  
  
"Hey, Tsukasa, everything's gonna be fine. We'll be able to figure out what's going on, and you'll be able to log out. You don't have to be so glum. I'm sure-"  
  
Tsukasa looks up sharply as she lets out a little gasp, and his violet eyes blink when she doesn't move.  
  
"S-Subaru? Is something wrong?"  
  
Subaru's body is surrounded by rings of pink light, running up and down, pushing him away...  
  
She disappears.  
  
"Subaru?!"  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
"Who are you two?"  
  
"Oka and Niji," the brunette replies.   
  
Takeo sighs. ::I've sort of figured that.:: "Well then, WHY are you here?"  
  
This time, the blond speaks. "Well, I'm here to help you out! And Oka's here to help your sister."  
  
"By the way, where is she? I can't very well help her if I can't very well find her."  
  
Takeo winces at Oka's comment, then replies, voice shaking as he tries not to cry. "She went off by herself."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
"Wait, stop, Silk-san..."  
  
"What is it?"  
  
Neko shakes her head, turning to one side. "I'll be back in just a second..." Before Silk can reply, she darts out of the street, down a side alley, dissapears.  
  
Silk shakes his head and follows the erratic lavender-eyed girl.  
  
Neko patters along the narrow alley, slowing down as the alien smell gets stronger, stopping as she goes around a little twist, almost tripping over an unconscious girl, who can't be much older than fifteen. Neko kneels next to the girl, brushing the sweat and rain dampened blond locks to the side as she feels the girl's forehead. Frowning at the clamminess that can't just be caused by rain, Neko pulls out a small green bottle and drips a little of the Potion into the girl's mouth.  
  
The girl opens her leaf-green eyes just a touch. "Darky?" she whispers in a curious multi-tone voice, almost like many notes being played on a pan flute.  
  
"Hey there, can you walk?" Neko inquires, lavender eyes concerned in her angular face. "If not, I'll carry you, but that armor looks heavy."  
  
"... Who are you? Where's Darky? Silverfang? Celtic? Where am I?! This isn't the Shadow Realm!!" The girl's eyes grow wider, her voice more panicked with every word. "What's going on?!!"  
  
Neko blinks at the overflow of questions. "Hey, slow down. I'll get you out of this back alley, and over to wherever Silk's taking me. Then ask me whatever." Not waiting for any response, Neko hosts the slightly taller girl up, supporting her when she staggers. "C'mon, up and at 'em. What's your name, by the way?"  
  
"D-dark Magician Girl..." she responds unsteadily.  
  
"Well then, I'm Neko. That old person standing right there looking curious is Silk-san. You can trust him, except probably with valuables. Do you happen to have a nickname? If not, we can find one for you. ^_^"  
  
Silk blinks at being called an old person, being a mere fifty years old. All right, nearly fifty-one, but he retained all his bright spryness (Spyness?) of youth, despite being one of the richest men in the world and married to the second-best spy in the world!  
  
(Silk would never admit that Velvet is a better spy than him, even though she is...)  
  
Dark Magician Girl also blinks, maybe from the kind, hyper cheerfulness of Neko, most likely because she's still feeling a little woozy. "Well... Some people call me D.M.G., but I don't really like that..."  
  
"Okay then!" Neko smiles warmly at the older girl. "Then I'll think of a name... How about Yabi? Yabiko would be better, actually. Or maybe Kokoro..."  
  
"Kokoro? Heart? Like the heart of the Cards... I like that name..." The Duel Monster blinks again, then falls into unconsciousness, barely being caught by Neko before she hits the ground.  
  
Neko blinks once. "Well, I can't actually CARRY you, baka-chan," she says to the taller girl.  
  
Naturally, Dark Magician Girl doesn't respond.  
  
Neko sighs. "Silk-san, I'm guessing that the armor she's wearing would be considered indecent?"  
  
Silk nods.  
  
Neko unzips her oversized raincoat, draping the garment around Dark Magician Girl. "Well, I'm certainly glad Leon gave this to me. He's one of the tallest people at the Bastion- except maybe Seph-dono." She glances down at her normal charcoal-grey clothes, then shrugs, deciding people could live with a bare midriff and loose pants on a girl. Better than the almost lack of clothes on Dark Magician Girl. "Silk, help me carry her, please..."   
  
*********************  
  
Oni weeps.  
  
:: STUPID. WHY ARE YOU CRYING?::  
  
Oni sobs into his arms, then raises his face, a flicker of desperation in his hurt crystal blue eyes. "You have to stop them! Can't you stop the heartless? I can't let Neko or Takeo get hurt! If you keep on hurting ME like this, can't you at spare them pain?"  
  
:: NO.::  
  
"Please... If they..."  
  
:: IF THEY DIE? THEY WON'T. NOT FOR A GOOD WHILE, AT LEAST. I CAN'T SPEAK OF TOO FAR INTO THE FURURE.::  
  
He draws in a sharp breath of pain, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Another tear traces wet tracks down his cheek as he opens his eyes again, the blue darkening with helpless, useless anger. "L-leave me alone! I never wanted you! Go away, Aku!" Oni's eyes shine with wetness, and he roughly wipes his sleeve across them. "Can't you at least leave me alone in my dreams?"  
  
:: NO.::  
  
His eyes paling with pain, Oni weeps again. "J-just leave me alone... I don't want to be a puppet my entire life..."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Destiny Island  
  
Kairi walks along the cove, her hair loose down her back, her blue-violet eyes distant.  
  
Absently leaning over to pick up a pebble, she stares at it for a moment before tossing it out across the calm sea.  
  
She wanders along the shore, letting her mind wander with her. Turning for a moment to look out over the ocean-  
  
Kairi's eyes widen.  
  
She runs down to the calm ocean, looking towards the horizon, clasping her shaking hands behind her back, staring at the streaks of white fire cascading towards the horizon.  
  
A seagull calls out above her, uncaring that the walls around Destiny Island are falling into the ocean.  
  
"No..." She shakes her head. "Not the Heartless. Not again!"  
  
"Yes. It's happening again." The strange, ghost-like voice, almost reminicent of the hiss of fire, drifts around Kairi. "Strange, how something so pretty as a meteor shower can represent so much destruction."  
  
Kairi's long hair drifts in the gentle ocean breeze as she turns, startled, to see a tall woman with slanted eyes of solid blue and long, strait, fiery hair.  
  
"Wh-Wha- Huh?"  
  
"Hello. You can call me Marjani." The woman brushes her hair back from her pale face, revealing pointed ears.  
  
*********************  
  
-san: Demonstrates a medium level of respect- about on the level of 'Mr.'  
  
Baka-chan: Err... Literally, along the lines of 'Beloved Idiot.' Neko probably shouldn't be calling DMG chan, they only just met, but... ^^;;  
  
-dono: About on the level of san, respect-wise, but you would use it if you're serving someone somehow. (Kenshin uses this for Kaoru and Megumi because he serves them by protecting them... Or that's what I read. ^^;;) Why Neko calls Seph this, I have no idea, but I'll make up something eventually.  
  
Poor Oni-chan. He's only Riku's age... And he going through the same thing, but a lot less willingly.  
  
ENE guide's names (In order of appearance):  
  
Zeff- Wolf  
  
Niji- Rainbow  
  
Oka- Hill  
  
Anima- Spirit  
  
Miru- See  
  
Aku- Evil  
  
Marjani: Coral  
  
Nami: (She appears next chapter) Wave  
  
Well, now to analyze Kairi and Anzu!... *Starts to cry* My little kids are all grown up! Kairi's TEN YEARS older than me! 8_8 And Anzu-chan is nearly my age!  
  
Muses: -_-()  
  
Kairi, v2.0  
  
We all remember our old Kairi, ne? Sweet, a bit giggly, and bossy in a cute way that had Sora running all over the island for logs, mushrooms, and coconuts. "Aye, aye, captain! *Giggle*"  
  
Yeah. ^_^;;  
  
By the end of Kingdom Hearts, it was fairly obvious she "LIKED" Sora. Obvious to just about everyone everyone. "Take care of her for me", "Promise you'll come back to me!" "You have to return this," ect. And I'm fairly sure Sora liked her back.  
  
Jo: *Growl*  
  
Er... Ignore the exclusively R/S fangirl. ^_^;;  
  
Anyway, Kairi lost hope as the years dragged on that Sora would ever come back to her. She never got over him, though. "True love" and all.  
  
Jo: *Glaring sakabatous and bokken at me*   
  
-_-;;... So now she's depressed just as bad as, if not worse than, Neko is. Just doesn't hide it very well.  
  
But Kairi-chan does have one bright... er, not dark and dreary?... spot in her life. And that is...  
  
Anzu, v2.0  
  
Anzu is... Mary-Sueish. ^_^;; She cheers people up, she's good with kids, she sings, she has angel wings for goodness sakes!  
  
... AHHH!!! ANZU'S A MARY SUE! *Runs in circles*  
  
Muses (all six): -_-() *Thwack me*  
  
Itai... @_@... er, well, once upon a time, Anzu depended almost entirely on Neko-chan. Neko protected Anzu, helped Anzu, loved Anzu more than most sisters would, even though they really are only half-sisters or less. Neko-chan was her LIFE, in a way. So when Anzu was being attacked by the darkness, she chose Neko over her OWN life.  
  
It might have been better If she hadn't...  
  
When she appeared on destiny Island, Kairi found her, and she helped to fill some of the void in Kairi's life. And Kairi filled some of the void in Anzu's life, too. And Anzu has gone through as long a time with Kairi as she had with Neko. But Kairi wasn't always there for her, so Anzu had to grow out of her introvertness that was brought on by Neko always being there.  
  
I'm a bit sorry to say this, but if she and Neko hadn't split up, Anzu might very well be an emotional cripple, instead of a steadying pillar of brightness.  
  
Better Mary Sue unstable, ne?  
  
Neko, Takeo, Oni, Riku, and other insane characters: *GLARE*  
  
Eheh... ^^;; Hi? *Gets attacked* ITAI!!!! LEMME OUT! AHH! *Escapes* Review before they finish me off! *Gets dogpiled* 


	20. Before Our Very Eyes

** Sorry this updated late on Tuesday- couldn't get to FanFiction.net earlier. v_v **  
  
ARGH! Not only do I have a cold, I have a nosebleed from East Of Sanity YYH fanfics and pics... Although the nosebleed is worth it. Hehehe... ^_~  
  
Lily: *Thwack* HENTAI! Sop drooling at my Kurama-sama!  
  
Aw, you were thinking the same thing... He's HOT as a bellydancer! And "After the show" is even hotter... XD  
  
Lily: *Starts to nosebleed* ALANA! You're only thirteen!  
  
So? ^_^  
  
Jo: *Reading lemons* ^_^ Teehee! I love Utopian Trunks!  
  
Lily: O_O *Scandalized*  
  
*******  
  
Reviewers: Maji the Blue Mage (Fun?...I did? *Re-reads chapter* Oh, in describing Neko. You're right, Kenshy-chan. Vivi, just be glad it's not my muse Jo- she'd be glomping you, more than likely. Riku-chan, I sympathize, but I don't interfere with other people's muses. And Leon-chan, of course it is! I'm a fangirl of SIX boys! *Huggles Ryou Bakura, Riku, Sephiroth, Amidamaru, Kenshin, and Hiei*), SamaraRose7 *Chapter 1* (Oh, thank you! I'm glad you like it so far! *Giggle* And thanks for becoming my first NEW reviewer in forever!)  
  
Warning: Actual humor. Rather dry, but it's there, at least for the first three scenes. Then my style changes completely. ^_^;; Also, some Japanese, most new to this story... Should that be a warning?  
  
Disclaimer: You should know who I own and don't own by now.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Eight  
  
Before Our Very Eyes  
  
  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
"Wh-what?" Oka stares at Takeo. "But she wasn't supposed to leave until I met up with her! Her keyblades would upset the balance even more if she used them without supervision! Miru was supposed to get her to STAY!"  
  
Niji smiles cheerfully, patting the brunette on the back. "C'mon, Oka, if Miru let her go, it should be fine. I mean, this is MIRU we're talking about."  
  
Oka glares at Niji. "Yeah, but have you seen some of the sims Miru's run involving alter-Nekos? She's missing a few bolts, you know!"  
  
Takeo blinks. "Oro? What's wrong with Neko?"  
  
The two tall young men blink at the still-sitting-halfway-in-Oni's-nich-with-tearstains-from-reading-Oni's-journal Takeo. They blink at each other.  
  
"Should we go where we have all the time in the worlds?" Niji inquires.  
  
Oka nods. "Sure, why not?" he asks in a resigned voice.  
  
They each grab one of Takeo's hands, and close their eyes in concentration. Takeo lets out another confused "Orooo?!" as they start to shimmer out of that particular level of reality.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ |WALLS|  
  
"Sooo... How long are we gonna be walking?" Sora asks Zeff, stretching his arms out then folding them behind his head.  
  
Zeff shrugs, brushing a few reddish tendrils of hair out of his cinnamon-blood eyes. "A while."  
  
Sora sighs just a little bit. ::I'm bored::  
  
They walk.  
  
Sora yawns as they walk.  
  
They walk some more.  
  
(The authoress assumes you get the point.)  
  
The air in front of Sora and Zeff shimmers! Gasp! Shock! And three people step out of the temporary Interdimensional Rift!  
  
Zeff blinks. Sora blinks. Takeo blinks. Oka blinks. Sora and Takeo blink about three more times. Niji makes a ^_^   
  
"Well, it's about time something happened..." Sora jokes.  
  
Zeff blinks at him, then at the two guides. "Niji? Oka? Why are you two here? I thought you two were going to be coaching Neko on how to use her-" Zeff cuts off abruptly, looking oddly at Sora.  
  
::Is he looking _nervously_ at me?::  
  
Oka looks at Sora, his grey gaze sharp. His eyes widen, and he nudges Niji. Niji blinks blue eyes curiously up at Oka, then also looks wide-eyed at Sora.  
  
Sora blinks a little at the strange looks he was getting from the odd pair. "What?"  
  
Takeo, taking in the odd reactions of Oka and Niji, looks curiously at the fairly ordinary boy, and gets swept with a wave of deju-vu.  
  
Or maybe nausea. It's hard to tell them apart, in this place.  
  
In either way, he draws in a sharp breath, his own aqua eyes widening. "You- you're SORA!"  
  
Sora looks like he would sweatdrop if he were an anime character. "Er, yeah. I sorta know that."  
  
Takeo nervously brushes his fingertips over one of the topazes by his eyes, blurting out the most cliché phrase he's ever used. "I'm your son!"  
  
Sora blinks. A record five, no, six times. Every guide there stares in horror at Takeo. Then Sora blurts out the most intelligent thing that comes to his confused mind.  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
Neko and Silk head up towards relative safety, carrying the still-unconscious Dark Magician Girl between them and attracting a few (Well, a lot) of odd looks.  
  
Goodness, today seems to be just FULL of odd looks, isn't it?  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Destiny Island.  
  
Anzu sits on the top of one of the coconut-star palms, chewing absently on the end of a ruddy-brown strand of hair as she watches Selphie and Tidus clean up the mess from the birthday party.  
  
"Island life is so peaceful, is it not?"  
  
Anzu nods, not startled by the odd voice from behind her, having already sensed the gentle presence. "It is. That's why I like it here." She turns her head to look at the person sitting on the next tree over. "I don't remember meeting you before."  
  
A slight smile crosses the young woman's pale face. "Probably because I just got here. I'm Nami."  
  
"Anzu 4-SK."  
  
Nami nods her head, looking out over the ocean, her odd grey-blue eyes distant. "Anzu..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Well..."  
  
"Ne, what is it?" Anzu tilts her head to one side, curiously.  
  
"Do you know what it means when there is a meteor shower?" Nami brushes some of her short green-blond hair back, dangling her legs over the side of her tree.  
  
"Iya..."  
  
"It means that the barriers between worlds are falling." Nami's gaze shifts east, towards the cove. "It means that the Heartless... The Heartless have been released again."  
  
Anzu blinks her large blue eyes, turning her head to see what Nami is looking at.  
  
White streaks of fire fall across the tropical blue sky.  
  
"Are?!" Anzu jerks upright from her lazy half-reclined position, orange feathers bristling. ::She said that means the Heartless are back?! Demo sa... How does she know all this? Why did she show up now?:: "Mou, what's going on?!"  
  
Nami looks a bit sadly at Anzu. "Do you need to wrap up anything? We need you to leave the islands."  
  
*********************  
  
Ansem?  
  
::Hmm?::  
  
Ansem.  
  
::A voice?::  
  
You need to come back. You are part of our balance.  
  
::All right...::  
  
Do you know how to escape?  
  
::Escape? Escape what?::  
  
Here.  
  
::Where is here?::  
  
It does not matter. Can you escape?  
  
::Can I? I don't know.::  
  
You can. Will you?  
  
::I suppose. How shall I do so?::  
  
***  
  
Dark orange eyes open in a tan face. They look up at pale, sad, almost inhuman eyes, half-way familiar, because he looked into the same face they sit in nearly a decade ago.  
  
"Hello, Ansem, my creator. Boku thought you were dead." Holding out a hand, the boy helps Ansem to his feet.  
  
"I thought I was dead, too." He holds up his hand in front of his face, then pulls a long strand of pale hair examining it minutely as if to see if it was real. He drops the strand, looking around the blankly dark landscape. "Where are we, 5-RSSK?"  
  
"My name is Oni, not 5-RSSK." He looks mournfully around. "I don't know were this is; Aku took over my body for a while, and here we are."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
"Dakara, how did you get here? Or don't you know?"  
  
Ansem frowns a little, looking at the blue horizon. "I heard a voice... It said something, and I said something back... And then I was here."  
  
There is a long silence, then Ansem sits down.  
  
"So, tell me, how long has it been? How have your fellow creations grown? I remember that Squall, Yuffie, and Aerith came back to the Bastion; Did anyone else?"  
  
Oni sits down beside Ansem, eyes falling from hurt crystal to a more thoughtful grey, although the pain remains. "Since you disappeared, along with the Heartless? It must be near nine years, now. My siblings, I haven't actually seen- seen with my eyes- in six years. Anzu- Wait, you knew her as 4-SK- She may be dead, but I'm not sure. Neko, 2-RK, is alive. Her magick developed nicely, with barely any training, and I found out from Aku that she possesses two keyblades..."  
  
Oni continues to report to Ansem, grateful for any reason to ignore the feeling that his heart and soul are slowly being ripped apart.  
  
*********************  
  
Translations:  
  
Oro: Wha? Huh?! ORORORO??!! (This is what Kenshin says in the Rurouni Kenshin subs when, say, trying to balance on top of a giant ball in a circus, or getting thwacked by Kaoru-chan, or falling over, or whatever.)  
  
Ne: At the beginning of a sentence, sort of like saying "Hey". At the end of a sentence, more a "Right?", "Isn't that so?" or "No?".  
  
Iya: No (less formal form of iie)   
  
Are?: Another way of saying "Huh?!"  
  
Demo sa: But...  
  
Mou: In the case where it's used, it's sort of like saying 'Tell me!'... I think...  
  
Boku: I/me. Informal, masculine, but polite. If a girl used this, she would be marks as a at least semi-tomboy...  
  
Dakara: So...  
  
*******  
  
Every muse except Jo: *Unconscious from loss of blood via nosebleeds*  
  
Jo: Wai~! Hiei is so kawaii, looking at Kurama like that!^_^  
  
-_-()Er, Jo-chan, could you stop looking at the citrus fan art? I like it as much as you do, but I need my muses... And my READERS... 


	21. Endless Starry Sky

Before anyone says it, I know I missed the Oni-Ansem talk at the end of last chapter. I couldn't write up anything up on them yet; I want you guys to figure it out. ^_^ I may not write up on them until the wrap-up chapters at the very end. But if I forget then, feel free to yell at me in a review...  
  
Also, if anyone reading this plays FFVII, I have a new story for that wonderful game called 'Major Seventh'. Check it out!  
  
*******  
  
Reviewers: Maji (Er, I know some Japanese, but most I get from the East Of Sanity's glossary- eastofsanity.com/glossary. Best glossary I've EVER found! But EoS is intensely yaoi, so you might want to think about tapanime.com's glossary instead if ya don't like nosebleeds. ^_^;; And Leon, it's fine! And better than my muse Jo- she's a Sora and Riku shounen-ai fanatic. ^_^ And I believe you about how many errs there were- I made about seven just answering you. I wonder how Leon would react to being called Lean... ^_^) soraoathkeeper (Good for you, SOK-dono! Atashi ga very happy, too! ^_^)  
  
Warnings: Er... None that I can think of right now... wait, more of my (Decidedly odd) humor. And clumsy attempts at portraying characters I have no idea how to write. ^_^ Oh, and what is the beginning of a romance between someone and someone else, and may eventually turn into a triangle, but I don't know who the third person might be...  
  
Disclaimer: You should know who and what I own and don't own by now.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Nine  
  
Endless Starry Sky   
  
  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
Lani didn't like how all her best friends were leaving.  
  
She hid it well; She learned how to hide her feelings behind a laughing mask from Neko. But she also learned that sometimes you have to let off a little out, or you'll really hurt. Lani couldn't count the times she found Takeo crying where he thought no one would find him, and would wrap her short arms around his neck and just be there for him.  
  
One day, sneaking some of the cookies from the kitchen, Lani heard Mom and Dad talking about Takeo and Sephiroth. Dad was a little upset, his blue eyes glowing a little more than normal, his quiet voice a little louder.  
  
"Aerith, he's always hanging around Sephiroth! You especially know what Sephiroth can do. I don't want Takeo or Neko getting hurt..."  
  
Mom shook her head at Dad, looking up at him. "Hush, love, you know why Sephiroth did what he did. He's very different now, he really is. And I think Takeo is really helping Sephiroth get over his past, in a way. Remember how, when we first returned, he would always be in either the library or his room? Now he's much more outwards, and open, and talks to people who aren't immensely prejudiced towards him."  
  
"But... He SHOULDN'T be talking to people! He's-"  
  
"CLOUD!" Mom glared at Dad, hands on her hips. "He had a very painful childhood, and found connection with another one of Ansem's victims! Just because he nearly killed me once doesn't mean he's always evil and twisted! He's finally almost happy, with Takeo's help, so stop being a... a prejudiced MORON!" Mom's eye twitches.  
  
Lani was between laughing at the look on Dad's face, and running from Mom's outburst, but instead hid behind a counter and quietly at her cookies until they left the room.  
  
But that has almost nothing to do with Takeo and Neko leaving. Except... ::Wait...Maybe?::  
  
Lani runs trough the halls, her golden-brown hair trailing behind her, skidding to a halt in front of a set of rooms. She raises a hand to knock on the dark door, and her knuckles strike the wood gently.  
  
After a moment, the door opens.  
  
Sephiroth blinks down at Lani.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
"Hey, Neko, could you hold her for a moment?"  
  
Neko nods, wrapping her arms more firmly around Dark Magician Girl as Silk gently drops the Duel Monster's legs. Pushing one of the large doors of the Citadel open a crack, Silk waves his hand at someone inside.  
  
"Hoy, you there, go tell Lady Polgara I have a wounded young lady with me!"  
  
Neko hears a muffled 'Yes, your highness, immediately, your highness!' as Silk looks back at her. She smiles brightly, then looks avidly around, violet eyes wide. "This is amazing! It's not on the scale of floating platforms and water you can walk on, but it's really a strategic miracle! The only strategic advantage to where I grew up was the inability to move around unless you practically grew up there. And even then it's pretty hard, sometimes it takes ten minutes to get a hundred yards, or you forget which bubble will take you forward, or how to open up the library... of course, you can always walk on top of the bookshelves, but once Takeo fell off them, and then he was out for a day..."  
  
"Er..."  
  
Silk was saved from trying to respond to that information overload by the doors being swung the rest of the way open, and a tall, beautiful woman with raven-wing locks... GAH!!! MARY SUE!!! DELETE LAST LINE!!!  
  
Er, sorry... Let's try describing Polgara-sama again...  
  
Sweeping down the stairs is a tall, majestic woman with very dark hair, except for a single white streak over her left temple. Her fiery grey eyes glare at Silk.  
  
"Silk, I expected you to stay out of trouble! What'll Velvet think?" She sweeps past him, eyes softening as she sees a young girl with the strangest hair supporting another, older girl. "I don't want to know what happened right now, Silk. I'm in a good mood. Help her carry the young lady up to my rooms."  
  
Silk nods, smiling in a mischievous manner. "Oh, but Polgara, how could you imply I was being anything unhonorable? Why, I'm shocked!" After a pause, during which he helps Neko pick up the blond-haired Duel Monster, he says much more seriously, "but I really wasn't doing anything you would disapprove of. I went out into the country because I heard that there was another rising of Bear Cultists and ran into Neko here-"  
  
Polgara smiles at Neko, cutting Silk off. "Hello, I'm Polgara. Why don't you tell me what happened, or Silk will be talking all day."  
  
Neko beams at the woman. "Well, as Silk-san said, he found me wandering around in the middle of nowhere, and brought me back to this city. We were heading here, when I felt something, and found Dark Magician Girl here in an ally. And then we came here. So, my name is Neko. And you are Polgara?..."  
  
Nodding, Polgara pushes the door to her predominately blue rooms. "Come on in, put the young lady on the bed."   
  
Neko watches curiously as Polgara bustles about, gathering up what appears to be a medical kit.  
  
*********************  
  
*Voice... Am I really nothing more than that to her? A voice, floating around in her head?* Miru's sad musings float through nowhere as a test runs, the alter-Neko triumphing over evil and saving the universe. Absently noting down how it happened, he runs another test, this time the alter-Neko failing, and darkness enveloping the worlds. *I wish she didn't see me like that... I wish I wasn't just a voice.*  
  
He memorizes the results again, and again tests it, but this time with things coming in right- The darkness there, but also the light, in perfect balance. It had never happened before, and most likely never will, but that's what they are aiming for.  
  
*I wish I could really help her, not float around here all day, running tests and giving advice. USELESS advice- I can't measure the time there, I can only test the advice against what's happening, against surface thoughts.*  
  
*Voice...*  
  
Miru begins another test, but stops it in the middle. *LP?*  
  
^Hmm? Are you calling me, Miru?^  
  
*Yes... Remember back when I ran those tests for you, the ones you couldn't do? I'm calling in that favor.*  
  
^Oh? What could I do?^ the spirit of the Light Prophesy inquires.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Destiny Island  
  
"Anzu..."  
  
Jumping down from the tree, wings spread to slow her fall, Anzu ignores Nami in favor of running down the beach towards the cove. She folds her wings in, rushing through the flimsy driftwood door.  
  
Nami also jumps, but towards the low tunnel that exits by the star tree. Calmly walking through, she sees Anzu rushing towards Kairi. Marjani looks up at Nami, nods.  
  
Nami nods back, skipping lightly over the Star Palms, then dropping to the ground.  
  
"Kairi, doushita n da?! Why is there a meteor shower?! How-" Anzu stops, seeing how Kairi's hands are shaking. "D-daijoubu ka?"  
  
"No..." Kairi shakes her head. "No. I'm not alright. It's- It's a METEOR shower, Anzu. The Heartless..."  
  
*********************  
  
"The Heartless..." Oni stops, gasps in pain, doubling over.  
  
Ansem leaps to his feet. "RSSK?! What's wrong? Are you hurt?"  
  
Oni looks up, sadly blue eyes shading into glowing liquid topaz. "Daijoubu, Ansem-sama. I'm fine." Absently, he reaches into his pocket and draws out a long, dark piece of cloth, edged in silver stitching, and wraps it across his eyes. "Now, what was ore saying?"  
  
A little shiver goes up Ansem's spine at the total void of emotion filling Oni's voice. Before, it had been a little sad, a little afraid, but now... Nothing.  
  
Ansem ignores it, though. "You were beginning to say something about Heartless."  
  
"I was. Well-"  
  
Once again, Oni's report is interrupted.  
  
"Ansem?"  
  
Ansem turns, a vague feeling of deja-vu tickling his mind as he looks at the slender, colorless young man behind him.  
  
The teen smiles morosely, bowing, tarnished silver hair falling across his white face. "Hello. My name is Shiru."  
  
TBC  
  
*********************  
  
Doushita n da: What's wrong? What happened?  
  
Daijoubu ka?: Are/is he/she/you/it alright?  
  
Daijoubu: As a statement, "I/he/she/it am/is alright." Literally "safe, secure."  
  
Ore: A very rough way of saying 'I', could be considered rude. Sephiroth and Cloud happen to use this, in Japanese. It's very odd for a girl to use it, although some do.  
  
Ending Notes: Lessee... I think Shiru is the last ENE guide we're gonna meet! All the consistent characters have been introduced, the kids are all ready to set off on great adventure, we're ready for everything else. Hoorah! Now, when can I get to those great ideas that I've had since forever?... ^_^  
  
Well, since I'm not doing Ansem and Oni yet, I'll answer a question from a review forever ago...  
  
***  
  
I remember soraoathkeeper-dono asking me about the 'half/full-brother' thing forever ago. Well, to put it simply, Neko and Takeo only share Riku's genes, but they are both approximately half-Riku- But Takeo doesn't have any Kairi DNA, and Neko doesn't have any Sora in her. It's about the same for Anzu, she's half Sora, half Kairi, but not a drop of Riku. So those three are considered half-siblings. But Oni has Riku, Sora, AND Kairi DNA, as shown by his much-shortened code, (5-RSSK) so he shares genes with all the combos. So he's in a way fully related to them all, instead of only half-related- If that makes any sense.  
  
Now, review, and if anyone has a question for me to answer next chapter, fire away! ^_^ Ja~!  
  
********************* 


	22. Black And White

It's... Part ten... Wow... o_o...  
  
Aside, it's way too early Saturday morning when I start this... And I've had this possible pairing stuck in my head all night... Except it might bump this story up to R, and it's shounen-ai... Which some people don't like... But it may happen anyway... And Ansem's nice... I read too much of Wire and Rain... And... *yaaawn* I'm gonna write now...  
  
*******  
  
Reviewers: None... Updating too soon... Wrote in a day... Sleep... zzzz  
  
Warnings: Erg... zzzzz... Need... Sleep...  
  
Disclaimer: Didn't come up with it means I dun't own it. Yawn... Too... Early... *Falls asleep*  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Ten  
  
Black and White  
  
  
  
*********************  
  
Ansem blinks his fiery eyes at Shiru.  
  
The boy turns to Oni. "Say hello to Aku for me. Miru said he's doing a very good job, if it is a little unorthodox."  
  
Oni smiles grimly. "He says hi, too. And he knows it's unorthodox, but it works. He knows I care about my family too much otherwise."  
  
Smiling sympathetically, Shiru nods, shimmering grey hair falling across his copper eyes again. "I know, Oni. I know." He sits gracefully, his heavy grey velvet cape pooling around him. "Have you set about molding the new Heartless yet?"  
  
Oni shakes his head. "No, I've only created one- LupeShadows."  
  
"Oh, those. Yes, I saw them in one of Miru's sim-runs. They're cute." Both Shiru and Oni smile.  
  
"Excuse me, but what in the worlds are you two talking about?"  
  
Both the young men smile at Ansem, but it is Oni who responds. "Didn't ore tell you that the Heartless are back?"  
  
Fiery eyes blink again. "No, you didn't."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ |WALLS|  
  
Oka starts to hit his forehead. "No, no, no, no, NO. This is NOT happening. Takeo, please tell me you didn't just blurt that out!"  
  
Niji lays a comforting hand on Oka's shoulder as Sora continues to blink. Takeo blushes slightly. "Er. Gomen?"  
  
Zeff shakes his head, brushing back some of his hair. "Well, can't be helped now that it's happened. Sora was going to find out about the kids eventually... I'll go tell Miru." His rust-colored eyes look off into the middle-distance, and both Takeo and Sora hear a slight whisper.  
  
Zeff blinks, and his thin, delicate eyebrows knit in puzzlement. "Niji, Oka, since when has LP been running the tests?"  
  
"Since... Never. In fact, he normally needs to ask help from MIRU..." Niji shakes his head. "Why would LP be there?"  
  
"I... Do not know... I'll ask..." Again Zeff's eyes grow distant, and that brush of sound tickles Takeo's and Sora's minds. "He says that Miru called him in as a favor, for all the times Miru ran those tests for world. And then he felt Miru creating something?... And then, he doesn't know."  
  
Takeo blink, then looks at Sora. "Sora?... Um, could I talk to you? Kudasai?" Not waiting for an answer, Takeo grabs Sora's arm, pulling him with surprising strength to one side.  
  
"Er..."  
  
"Look, um, see... I'msorryaboutblurtingthatoutwithnowarningandupsettingyouandOkaandNijiandthatguythat'swithyouand-" Takeo takes a deep breath. "-Ifyoudon'twanttobeleivemethat'salrightcauseIdidn'tbeleiveeitherwhenIfoundout. And... Andifyoudobeleivemebutdon'twanttopleasedon'tgetangrywithmebalmeAnsem!"  
  
Sora blinks. Then, rubbing his forehead, he sighs. "Come again?"  
  
Takeo looks as though he's just spent today's quota of bravery, but plunges on regardless. "I'm sorry that I said anything, and upset everyone, and if you don't want to b-believe me it's fine," Takeo's voice slowly climbs octaves as he speaks quicker, "Because I didn't really believe it myself, and if you want to get angry it's okay just blame-Ansem-not-me~!" Takeo starts to hyperventilate after that last blurred, squeaky sentence, eyes so wide that a ring of white shows all around his aqua-green irises, and tears start to leak out of the corners.  
  
:: He acts like I'm going to explode on him... I'm confused as can be, but not _angry_...:: "Hey, calm down. Why're you so terrified? And... Why should I blame Ansem?" A puzzled look crosses his blue eyes.  
  
Takeo doesn't respond immediately, but Sora's kind voice cuts through his panic, and his breathing slows. Almost in surprize, he raises a pale hand to wipe the wetness from his eyes, and when he does reply, his voice is only a little higher than normal.  
  
"S-sorry for freaking out on you. It's just... I've know you were a large part of my base DNA for six years, but I never told anyone, and I thought too much, and I couldn't help doubting even though everyone said you're a great guy and..." Takeo stares at his blue sneakers, taking a few deep, even breaths to bring his voice back down from where it had started to climb again.  
  
"Um... Why don't you start from the beginning?" ::This kid is REALLY confusing me!::  
  
"Well... You know it was Ansem who originally released the Heartless, nineteen- no, twenty years ago, now, by fiddling with doors and such?"  
  
Sora nods. "Yeah, he said all that in his reports; But was it really twenty years ago?"  
  
"Aa." Takeo nods. "It just didn't spread to other worlds quickly, the barriers between worlds had built up for a long time before that. But anyway, about five years after that, he sent a girl off to another world of islands, and followed her briefly once she arrived there. I don't know everything, but apparently he collected DNA samples from her and two young boys."  
  
Sora blinks. "Wait- Do you mean Kairi? Ansem SENT her?"  
  
Takeo nods again. "Yes, Kairi. And the two boys he took DNA from were you and Riku."  
  
"I think I see where this is going..." Sora frowns at the middle distance.  
  
"Well, he basically fiddled around with the DNA, melding it with some extra, and adding in some of the Heartless structure and created my older brother. Then he fiddled with just yours and Riku's, and put some crystalline structure in, and created me. Then Riku's and Kairi's, as well as adding in some cat DNA for claws, fangs, and grace, and came up with Neko-chan, my little sister. And then-" Takeo's voice gets very quiet of a sudden, and he focuses on his sneaks again. "He melded your DNA, Kairi's, and gave m-my sister Anzu angel wings."  
  
Sora stares at his own oversized yellow shoes, trying to absorb all this, so he misses the fact that after conferring with Oka and Zeff for the last few minutes, he created a mallet out of apparently nothing and was about to hit Takeo over the head with it.  
  
Therefore, it wasn't until Takeo fell over that Sora noticed anything amiss.  
  
*********************  
  
::Riku seems to have gotten over his hysteria... Or whatever that was.::  
  
Anima absently rubs the faint mark on the side of her neck, where Riku's overly strong embrace bruised her delicate skin.  
  
"So, where are we going?"  
  
She smiles faintly at the teen, who doesn't seem to really care where they're going as long as he's not alone. "That decision is up to you, Riku. Up ahead is a crossroads- on more than one level. We shall see which way we shall go there." Anima tilts her head back, looking into the endless starry sky. "But for now, we will walk, and talk, and tell of our past, and look to the future. And who knows? Our new journey may not me so hard, or maybe it has already begun, just for all of our meetings, and greetings, and tales of old times. But whatever shall happen, wherever we shall go, there will be people out there affected by our actions. And..." She lowers her pale face, looking before them. "And maybe, just maybe, someone who will never hear our names, or know that we existed, will be able to look up at the sky one day, and think 'how beautiful', and we'll know that it's because of us that that one person is still alive. And that's really all one can hope for, right? To save a soul, or maybe many, or maybe thousands, and they'll never know it was us, but we will know, and isn't that enough?"  
  
Riku stares wide-eyed at her, hands that were folded behind his head dropping to his sides. After a minute of silence, a thoughtful smile breaks across his face. "Wow, Anima, that's deep. That's gonna stick in my mind for a while."  
  
Blushing slightly, Anima beams at the comment, delivered in a rough, underused voice, but sincere as can be. "Th-thank you, Riku."  
  
"Nah, nothing to thank for."  
  
As Riku links his hands behind his head again, a shy smile crosses Anima's face and her slanted eyes sparkle.  
  
TBC  
  
*********************  
  
Translations:  
  
Ore: Remember this from last chapter? A really rough way to say 'I/me', could be considered rude, ect...  
  
Gomen: Sorry.  
  
Kudasai: Please? (polite)  
  
Aa: A general 'yes' sort of sound- Not formal at all, as far as I can tell.  
  
*********************  
  
Aww... Fluff... =^_^= Totally unplanned, and maybe pointless fluff, but still cute. =^_^= I may end up having more romance than I planed.  
  
So, I want to make a little survey. How many people here are up to a love geometric shape? And how many would mind if it included boy/boy? You don't have to answer, but it would be nice. And feel free to ask questions! Ja ne! 


	23. Good Can Will

We interrupt your normal programming to bring you this news flash...  
  
Five teenagers in my county died this week, another is in the hospital. Why are people such IDIOTS? ;_;  
  
One of the deaths and the hospitalization is from a school shooting. The other four deaths were from some idiot, most likely drunk, teens playing chicken with a TRAIN. The bloody idiots! *Sniffsnifflesniff* Why do people DO these things?   
  
Also, I just got grounded big time, so this sorta might be the last update in a while. ;_; Sorry, minna-dono.  
  
IMPORTANT QUESTION AT THE VERY BOTTOM!  
  
*******  
  
Reviewers: soraoatkeeper (You would have to ask a hard one, wouldn't you? I'll answer at the bottom...) Maji the Blue Mage (*Laughs* I know what you mean, Maji-dono, on everything. And if you want sentence structure, there's this site that I found, Nihongo o Narau, that teaches basic Japanese- "learn-japanese.info/lesson01.html", a www in front of course. You could try that place out. And Kenshin-chan, Lily says she knows how you feel... ^_^;;)  
  
Warnings: Well, I'm starting off with a cryptic songfic Neko-Dream based on Deep Dive, which'll be odd.-_-;; Also, more Riku and Anima romantic fluff, as in pink cotton-candy clouds and singing cherubs sort of fluff. And then clueless Riku-chan challenges Anima-chan to a race... *Face* Idiot.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own ANY of them anymore. v_v They own themselves. Or maybe someone else owns them. But it's sure not ME. *Cries* I want my control back~! :(  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Eleven  
  
Good Can Will  
  
  
  
*********************  
  
~ If you are near to the dark  
  
I will tell you 'bout the sun ~  
  
Neko stands at the edge of a glassy sea, a brilliant moon veiled by a shimmering curtain of clouds. Rocks covered with an edge of glowing mist surround her, silhouetted against the midnight blue sky.  
  
She turns to face the moonlight, lifting her face so it streams under her grey hood and through her pale, wild bangs to hit her face in a cool stream. She walks to the edge of the dark water.  
  
As Neko tilts her head down, a glassy shine of light catches her sight.  
  
~ You are here, no escape  
  
From my visions of the world ~  
  
She walks to where the bottle rests in the fine, smooth, blue-tinted sand, her waveringly distorted reflection floating on the outside of the crystalline glass. As she kneels before it, hood and bangs shading her eyes, the reflection pushes its own hood back, showing wild silver-white hair with the barest hints of other colors floating down to the shoulders of a young man with large, tilted, pale blue eyes full of pain. He reaches out his hand, mouth open in a soundless cry for help, face twisting in pain. Then his face calms, hardens, closing out all emotions as his eyes shade to glowing goldenrod, and he draws a black strip of cloth across those blank orbs of Heartless light, tying it underneath his wild white hair.  
  
~ You will cry all alone  
  
But it does not mean a thing to me ~  
  
Neko flinches back, turning her head away from the hard face reflected to her, with its cold, cold smile, and when she turns her head back, her brother has disappeared, and instead she sees the curl of water-stained parchment inside the bottle.   
  
~ Knowing the song I will sing  
  
till the darkness comes to sleep ~  
  
Lifting the bottle in a delicate grip, she reaches through the uncorked neck and fishes out the damp parchment, unrolling it over her pale fingers, carefully parting it with her long, sharp, silver-tinted nails. She lifts it so the moonlight falls across the smudged blue ink, only a few words here and there decipherable.  
  
*...ling Paradise......a fragmented tale......world without you...... The eyes w... close...... ENDLESS...... I ..... exist......*  
  
~ Come to me, I will tell  
  
'bout the secret of the sun ~  
  
Such sadness seems to resonate from the damp, yellowed scrap that unexplained wetness appears in Neko's lavender eyes, and a salty tear falls onto the letter. The ink where it falls blurs even more, seeming to swirl and darken as it flows down with the tear. As the tear traces along the bottom edge of the parchment, it blackens, and when it drips off a corner, it seems more a swirl of inky void than a mere ink-stained tear.  
  
~ It's in you, not in me  
  
But it does not mean a thing to you ~  
  
"Nani?..."  
  
The dark drop hits the ground, spreads into a pool of darkness, almost a foot around. It swirls hypnotically, a flash here and there of glowing yellow, and a slim, delicate, fanged snout flows, slithers out of the edge, followed by slanted eyes- black ribbons of darkness flowing from dark, reptilian cheeks- Swept-back, fringed ears- dark, ragged mane- black feathered wings that, where they meet the slender, grey snakelike body are imprinted with a dark heart, spiked out at the base, and finally a long, whip tail ending in a black feather.  
  
~ the sun is in your eyes  
  
the sun is in your ears ~  
  
The three-foot long flying snake Heartless pulls itself away from the ground, wings flapping slowly as its hovers in front of Neko, tail writhing in sinuous curves. Its slit yellow eyes meet Neko's wide, half shocked, half fearful eyes through the shade of her hood, past the veiling falls of hair.  
  
~ but you can't see the sun  
  
ever in the darkness ~  
  
Neko raises a shaky hand to cast Scan, and the yellow eyes of the TsubasaRyu widen- it lunges- Neko falls back, raising her hands, Keyblades NOT coming to protect her- her hood falls back- A streak of pain across her arm, just where Oni slashed her so many years ago- She falls back, thin arms catch her, all she sees are a pair of eyes, thin, slanted, with dark royal purple slit pupils surrounded by a green-tinted rich blue, and fine strands of platinum blond...  
  
~ It does not much matter to me ~   
  
***  
  
Neko wakes up, huddled in the slightly oversized nightshirt Polgara found for her, her eyes wide and unseeing. She lashes out at the person holding her arm in a firm grim, slowly calming down as she realizes that it was a Dream, nothing more. But the pain... It was so real...  
  
As the silvery glow fades from her vision, the mark of one of her Dreams, her breathing slows, hand rising to the old scars on her arm. Dark Magician Girl slowly comes forward again.  
  
"N-Neko?" she stutters in her many-level voice, "are you alright?"  
  
Neko's eyes focus blankly on Dark Magician Girl, the wild look fading out, and recognition crossing them. "Oh, it's you. I'm sorry; Did I wake you?"  
  
The Duel Monster shakes her head. "I- I had already woken up, and, and I was trying to remember why I might be here, and then you started to cry in your sleep, and I was worried something was wrong..."  
  
"No, nothing is wrong..." Neko smiles cheerfully. "Don't worry. You should go back to sleep, Polgara-sama said you needed lots of rest."  
  
"All right... If you tell me what's going on in the morning..."  
  
Dark Magician Girl half-stumbles across the room to her bed, falling into it and into sleep almost instantly.  
  
:: It would be nice to be able to fall asleep so easily, and quickly...::  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Destiny Island  
  
"They're back." Kairi turns her wide violet eyes on Anzu, fear evident even to someone who isn't an Empath, as it is almost knocking Anzu off her feet.  
  
Anzu quickly throws up a mental wall, moving so she can put an arm around her foster mother. "Kairi-kaasan, is there any way to stop them?"  
  
"I- I don't know..."  
  
Anzu turns darkening cobalt eyes on the Guides that stand side by side near them. "You two! What do you have to do with this?! Do you know how to stop the Heartless?"  
  
Nami and Marjani glance at each other. "Well, we may, but we can not tell you," they say in unison, the subtle whispers of their voices melding perfectly.  
  
"Demo sa..."  
  
Nami speaks alone this time. "We can HELP rid the worlds of Heartless. You just have to trust that we know what we're doing. And this island should be safe enough for about a year- those were only the edges of the Barriers falling, barely enough for any hint of Darkness to slip through. But... Enough for US to slip through."  
  
Anzu stares wide-eyed at the pair, as does Kairi.  
  
"This is what you meant by do I have anything to wrap up..."   
  
*********************  
  
"You don't get to talk much, do you?"  
  
Anima blinks, pausing in her outpouring of ideas. "Well, no, not really... I'm one of the few of my kind who has very little to do, so everyone else is busy, and... Am I talking TOO much? I'll stop if it annoys you, Riku-kun..."  
  
Riku grins. "Nah, it's nice to hear a real voice, especially one as nice as yours." He squints at the horizon, missing the silly smile on Anima's face. "Is that a sunrise?"  
  
Anima looks towards it, the smile vanishing in a look of surprise. "Why, I think it is. Have I really been talking all night?"  
  
Riku shrugs, eyes avidly absorbing every detail of the rosy-orange glow. "A sunrise... I haven't seen dawn break in so long..."  
  
Anima blinks at him. "That's right. You just spent the last nine years trapped all alone in Kingdom Hearts."  
  
"Mm... The first couple years, Mickey was with me, but after that, he just sort of... Wasn't there." Riku continues to stare at the glowing clouds. "I wonder were he went..."  
  
Anima hovers on the edge of telling him that she KNOWS where King Mickey is, but doesn't, instead linking her arm through his and watching the sunrise with him.  
  
"Hmm... It's so beautiful... I haven't seen a sunrise for a while, either." She smiles as the sun slowly climbs into the sky, and they see the crossroads just ahead of them.  
  
"Huh, how appropriate. We start a new journey at daybreak." Riku laughs hoarsely, and turns to Anima. "Hey, I'll race you!"  
  
"What?" Anima blinks as he takes off. "HEY! Cheat!" She sprints after him, straining to catch up. Riku laughs again, slowing as he reaches the center of the crossroads.  
  
"Heh, is that the best you can do?" he calls back to her, breathing a little hard. Anima glares unconvincingly at him, slowing down to a jog.  
  
"No, you just caught me by surprise," she calls back, "and therefore you are a cheater."  
  
He laughs. "Aw, how can you be angry at someone like me?"  
  
"Growl..." She sticks her tongue out at him. "Riku-kun no baka."  
  
(Yes, Anima actually SAID 'growl'. She's odd like that.)  
  
Finally, she stops next to him, face waxing serious. "Well... What path do you chose, Riku-sama? Make your choice wisely, for it will steer your Destiny, more than anything else you have ever done, or will ever do. For now is the true test of soul, heart, and mind, and you must not fail in what Destiny you chose."  
  
Riku blinks at her sudden formality. But then his eyes widen as he recognizes where he heard a voice like hers before... "Ah, Anima-san, do you know where each path would take me?"  
  
A nod. "The path before us, well-traveled, easy, on the side you think best. It will lead straight to your Destiny, which will not be glorious, but neither will it be horrendous. To the left, a well-beaten path, not as common as the one before us. The going will be smooth, if long, and perhaps painful. The Destiny at the end will either take you to what you most desire, or destroy you utterly. The path we just took is the one where your Destiny is undecided, molded by the people around you, the one most people never leave. And the path to our right is the one least taken. It is the most difficult of the three, with many pitfalls and rocky stretches, and almost certain to have pain on the way through. Almost no one can truly follow through on this path, but those who do have the most glorious Destiny at the end, one of things they did not realize they needed, and there truest desires of all. The paths lay before you, Riku-sama. Which shall you take?"  
  
They stand in silence for almost an entire minute.  
  
"You know what, Anima-san? I'm going to take this path." He starts to walk down it, and Anima joins him.  
  
"So this is truly the path you choose, Riku-sama? You may still return to the crossroads, if you wish."  
  
Riku smiles and begins to hum, hands once again linked behind his head.  
  
~ Far beyond the ocean blue  
  
There's something calling out to you  
  
A light upon a distant shore  
  
A friend that lasts forever more  
  
There's something waiting far beyond  
  
Maybe just beyond the sun  
  
Two hearts can beat, and dearly true  
  
Beloved looking after you ~  
  
*********************  
  
Nani: What? (Can be used as an exclamation of surprise)  
  
-sama: High level of respect. You could call your king, your boss, a customer, or your boyfriend this- depends on what sort of pedestal you want to put them on, and how low you want to put yourself.   
  
Demo: but...  
  
-kun: Something you would call a close male friend. You can use it for girls, but it's not as common or correct.  
  
Baka: Idiot  
  
-san: Polite, about on the level of saying 'Mr' or 'Mrs' or 'Ms' or whateva.  
  
(o)kaasan: Mother.  
  
*********************  
  
Hehehe, cliffie! ^_^  
  
Muses: Boo! Hiss!  
  
Oh, gimme a break, it's not like you can't guess which road Riku took. -_-;; I mean, there's really only one he COULD take without me getting flamed. Isn't it obvious which one? By the by, those lyrics DO belong to me, so NYAH!  
  
Quatre: But Alana-dono doesn't own the music they're set to, Dearly Beloved.  
  
Hn. -_-  
  
*********************  
  
Q&A:  
  
SOK-dono asked a very good question. What are ENE guides?   
  
First off, they're the people with slightly pointed ears, pale skin, and eyes that have no white. You know, Zeff, Niji, Oka, ect. You SHOULD know that by now...  
  
And as for WHAT they actually ARE, I can't tell you. But ENE means endless non-existent, if that's any help. It isn't, by the way. It's just my way of explaining what I can't put into words. But pay attention to things like... Say, Miru's clothes, when he appears, or Niji's personality compared to a certain person's fan-ified personality.   
  
I just told Mom about this question, and she said they're a "Very bad charades idea, and put that in quotes." Teehee!^_^  
  
***Final Important!Notes:  
  
I have a major question. Will I lose anyone if I don't hate Ansem? And who would kill me if I had guys snogging guys or girls snogging girls by the time this story is over? If it's more than half of my consistent reviewers, (One person is more than half at this point... ^_^;;) I'll try to get my perverted brain to stop thinking about AnsemXShiru, OkaXNiji, NamiXMarjani, and other such odd pairings... 


	24. Nothing's Pure

Well, remember last chappie's questions? I've decided against the Yaoi/Yuri stuff, since everyone seemed doubtful of it, and I figure canon, Miru/Neko, and Riku/Anima will be more than enough for my story. I'll save the mega-fluffy romance for 'Flowers'... If I ever update it... ^_^;; But, since no one had problems with lack of hate for Ansem-ou-baka-kun, I'll allow 'Wire and Rain' to affect my viewpoint.  
  
Also, for lack of questions in reviews, I'll quickly run over Takeo's outfit: Past and Present in my end notes. *laugh* I'll do anything to boost word count, won't I?  
  
Note: Hammerspace is in full effect in my story as a place such things as Keyblades, healing potions, and (You guessed it!) mallets can disappear to. Also, a few anime rules work for on top of the |WALLS|- well, if not rules, emotions, like sweatdrops, ^_^, and anime falls. But they will otherwise not be in effect. (This doesn't applied to Niji, though... He'll '^_^' anywhere and anywhen he wants to.)  
  
*******  
  
Reviewers: SamaraRose7 (*Giggle* You really do like it? Thanks! ^_^ And thank you for saying I should write what I like. ^_^) Maji the Blue Mage (I hope the site is useful. It gives me a headache. And thanks for the reply to my question! ^_^ You can see the results...)  
  
Warnings: Jump in time in Neko's area- actually, everyone was ahead of her, but it'll seem like Neko is jumping ahead of everyone time-wise. Don't worry, it'll work out. Also, a slightly whiny Takeo. Although you have to admit his life hasn't been easy lately... Oh, and if ya squint real hard and tilt your head right, some shounen-ai-like stuff that leads nowhere is hidden a few segments.  
  
Disclaimer: I own all ENEG except Miru. I own Anzu, Neko, Takeo, and Oni. I own the idea and the plot. I don't own anyone or anything someone else created  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Twelve  
  
Nothing's Pure  
  
  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~|WALLS|  
  
"Huh?!" Sora's wide blue eyes meet Niji's smiling ones as the guide twirls the mallet over his fingers and pops it out of that particular plane of existence.  
  
"Well, he has the Dreams, and we dunno where Miru went, so we figured we could get him to figure it out. Anyway, he was talking too much." Niji shrugs. "He'll be fine, don't worry."  
  
Oka rolls his eyes. "No, he won't be, he'll have a horrible headache. I should know, Niji's hit ME enough times. Why didn't you just use Sleepel, Niji?"  
  
"Er..." Niji chews on the nail of his thumb thoughtfully. "Because... I didn't want to carry a sleeping, drooling teen?"  
  
Oka slaps his forehead and mutters something under his breath. Zeff, not quite as used to Niji's impulsiveness, slowly edges away from the blond. Sora just blinks.  
  
:: Isn't that what you're going to have to do anyway?...::  
  
Zeff puts Sora's mental question into words, and Niji grins.  
  
"Oh, I charmed the mallet so anyone knocked out by it won't drool." Niji beams at everyone.  
  
Everyone anime-falls.  
  
"I don't know why I put up with you, sometimes," Oka sighs. Rubbing his forehead, he notices that the effort needed to hold Takeo on the Wall is growing. "Hey, I'm straining here. I wasn't supposed to be supporting anyone but me here, and that's a lot less work. Can we pop out somewhere?..."  
  
Zeff blinks at the rapidly graying face of his fellow guide, and nods. "Niji, you knocked the boy out. You can carry him. We'll go to Graziar- since both Takeo and Sora are following the same Path, it should be no problem." He turns in a direction, motioning for everyone to follow. "Come, and Sora... Please try not to draw too many conclusions from what Takeo has told you. Not until we figure out how to fix this mess we're developing."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Dream  
  
^Fix this mess...^  
  
"Mmph... Headache..." Takeo rubs his forehead, dropping heavily to the flat plane beneath him.  
  
"Constant vigilance, Takeo. How many times have I told you that?" Sephiroth's deep, calm voice reverberates oddly around the startled boy. Takeo, after blinking for a moment, smiles tiredly up at the man.  
  
"Oh, hey. What're you doing here?" he inquires.  
  
"Don't ask ME. This is your dream, isn't it?" Sephiroth smiles. "I'm just a reconstructed memory. Someone out there needs to lead you around by the nose, and I'm just the once-evil now-reclusive guy to do it."  
  
"... I'm not even going to ask."  
  
"Good idea."  
  
"....."  
  
"Well? Aren't you going to ask me anything? Where I'm going to lead you, why someone out there summoned up me and not someone else, what's the meaning of life?"  
  
"... Not today. I just want to take a quick break from life right now." A weary sigh escapes his lips. "It's been so confusing, and I'm so tired. And these Dreams... They're not exactly restful, ne? What I wouldn't give for a normal sleep, for once. Or a normal life..."  
  
Kneeling down beside him, Sephiroth places a sympathetic hand on Takeo's bare shoulder. "Hey, kid, cheer up some. Cloud and Leon are supposed to be the gloom and doom guys around the Bastion. And just because you're not actually AT our Hallow Bastion doesn't mean you're allowed to take their place." The apparition of Takeo's friend frowns. "Hey, your skin is icier than Neko-chan's. Are you alright?"  
  
"Iie..." He lets out the negative sound in an unhappy moan. "I've had nothing but Dreams for the last week, so I haven't had more than three hours of REAL sleep a night. I just found out everything about my brother that I thought was right was really wrong. My sister LEFT me, with barely more than a mention of me in her good-bye. A bunch of strange guys dragged me off into another world, let me meet my father, let me make a fool of myself, and then let me fall asleep and have ANOTHER Dream. And to top it off, my head hurts!"  
  
Sephiroth lets out a small, sympathetic laugh. "Okay, so you have a reason to be moody and such. But your skin is STILL colder than it should be..."  
  
"I'm always cold, during a Dream. I've gotten used to it." Takeo shrugs.  
  
Sephiroth gives a small glare. "You shouldn't accept something until after it's proven unchangeable by normal or abnormal means." He pulls off his red-lined trench coat, draping it over Takeo. "Better?"  
  
"Oh..." Takeo sighs happily as warmth sweeps over his skin, and pulls the coat on more firmly. "How can a memory have such a WARM coat?" He pauses, muses over the last sentence. "Don't answer that, Seph."  
  
"Wasn't planning to." He slides fluidly from his crouch to a comfortable sitting position and puts a companionable arm around Takeo. "Do you mind if I tell Higher Up to bugger of and give you a good night's sleep?"  
  
"Oh, would you?" Takeo smiles gratefully up at him. "I'm so tired..."  
  
The memory of Sephiroth looks nowhere, then smiles down at the boy. "Go on to sleep, you idiot kid. It's all takes care of. Although Higher Up is a bit surprised that a mere construct has so much personality..." He trails off as Takeo starts to snore softly. "......Kawaii little brat. Sweet dreams, my idiot."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
"Here, straighten up some, and really PLANT those feet firmly." Neko patiently corrects the three-year-old's stance. "Now, keep both hands where I marked on the stick, and swing."  
  
Geran nods, biting his lower lip and swinging his stick down. Neko claps her hands.  
  
"That's wonderful! I've only been working with you for a week, and you're already better than Lani-chan!" She grins. "Now, keep the same stance, but swing harder and faster." She pulls a little swirl of ice up from the ground. "Try to hit that hard enough to break either your stick or the ice, but without changing how you swing."  
  
"Alright..." He swings down as hard as he can, chipping off the end of the stick. His eyes widen. "W-wow! I did it!"  
  
Neko smiles as the boy hugs her around the neck. "Well, that's it for today, Geran-kun. I need to practice with Dark-san. But you can watch, if you like!"  
  
"Yay!" He runs over to a bench underneath a young oak tree, clambering on to it as Dark Magician Girl steps up to Neko.  
  
They bow to each other, the Duel Monster's armor clinking musically, then back slightly away. Neko forms her dark Broken Heart keyblade in her right hand, clasps it with her left hand as well, bracing her feet.  
  
"No magic?" she calls out to Dark Magician Girl.  
  
"No magic," the girl confirms in her musical voice.  
  
Neko darts forward so fast Geran can barely see her, but Dark Magician Girl does nothing, simply standing with her eyes closed. Then, just as Neko is about to land the first hit, the swirl-topped staff appears in the blond's hands, and Dark Magician Girl ducks under the sideways swing. She quickly thrusts up in an attack that would knock the breath out of Neko if it hits, but Neko twirls back, the long trailing ribbons tying off her shirt fluttering around her.  
  
A small crowd starts to form around the edge of the garden as the servants pause in their work.  
  
They lunge back and forth, using almost every move they know, never landing a blow, until-  
  
The crowd gasps as Dark Magician Girl skids on a wet patch, and Neko manages to clip the side of her helmet on the pink patch there. The gasping blond slips and falls to the ground, and Neko places the tip of her keyblade to Dark Magician Girl's throat.  
  
"I win... Again." Neko smiles smugly, then lets the Broken Heart fade from her hand. Dark Magician Girl grimaces slightly and grasps it, letting Neko pull her to her feet.  
  
"Itai..." The blond rubs the side of her head. "If it wasn't for that wet patch, I would've won."  
  
Neko laughs. "Actually, you were getting close! I was surprised by how much you've already improved."  
  
"Kitten, please be more careful when your real journey starts." The faint voice is tinged by worry. "Soon, you will not have the luxury of battles with nothing at stake."  
  
Shocked, Neko turns to see a slender boy barely taller than her gazing worriedly at her through blue and purple eyes, his pale face half obscured by soft platinum blond strands.  
  
"V-Voice?!" She steps forward, then steps back, uncertain. A flicker of sadness crosses his eyes.  
  
"Kitten, please stop calling me Voice. My name is Miru."  
  
*********************  
  
Mickey hits his forehead against his gloved hand. "Argh! LP, did he give you any idea what he was going to do?"  
  
^I do not know. He only told me he was calling in the favor, told me how to run the tests, gave me a few important points about the tests he's run, and then his presence vanished. ^ The dry voice pauses for a moment. ^ More reports are coming in- this time from Marjani and Nami. They're having a bit of trouble with Kairi...^  
  
The ruler mutters under his breath. "Miru has been running things since he began his nonexistence. Why would he run off now?! He knows everything important- more than the rest of us combined. And we're nearing the ultimate choice!" He starts to pace frantically. "What I wouldn't give to have him back here... I need him! He's one of the key points!"  
  
^Mickey, calm down. It's not the end of the universe. I do know how to run this sort of thing from behind the scenes. And now that my own world-circle is resolved in of itself, I'm open to help out. ^  
  
"Well... I know that, but... You're just not Miru."  
  
^You think I don't know that? ^ A hint of exasperation creeps into the voice of the Light Prophesy's voice. ^But I'm the best you've got. And the only Guides that need special help right now are Niji- and Oka can deal with him- And Aku, whom Shiru can deal with. Zeff, Nami, Marjani, Anima, they can all deal with almost anything heading their way. So all I'm really doing is telling them what might be heading their way, and what would be the best idea for them to do. ^  
  
Sighing, Mickey rubs a temple. "I guess... I guess I'm just over-reacting a bit. He's just... He's been around since I started this. He's a very good friend, and it's hard to work without him nearby."  
  
^You know... ^  
  
"What?"  
  
^It's been nine years since you took a vacation. You should go back to Disney Castle, see your wife, Donald, Goofy, Chip and Dale... I can handle things for a few days without you hovering over my theoretical shoulder. Maybe you won't be so tense when you come back to discover the universe still exists. ^  
  
"Has it really been nine years since I saw Minnie?" Mickey's voice is a bit wistful. "It seems so much longer..." He pauses for a minute, then summons his golden Royalty Keyblade. "I think I'll do that. See you soon, LP!" Waving jauntily, Mickey uses the Royalty Keyblade to open a portal, then steps through.  
  
^See you soon, King Mickey. ^  
  
*********************  
  
Oni gasps as he comes out of the oblivious nothingness of Aku being in total control, all pain gone from his body.  
  
"Iie..."  
  
He rips the blinding piece of cloth away from his face, eyes flickering between horrified blue-violet and furious red. "No... Not again... They CAN'T have!"  
  
"Oni?..." Ansem slowly walks towards the boy, worry in his voice. "What's going on?"  
  
Oni scrabbles away, falling, tears leaking from his wild eyes. "Don't touch me! Iie..."  
  
Ansem ignores Oni's warning, reaching out a hand to hold the boy's arm, only to be knocked back by a wave of pure black energy.  
  
"DON'T..." Oni's face contorts into something between rage and absolute fear, darkness rippling over his skin. "TOUCH..." The solid jet eyes flicker- "ME!!"  
  
Ansem flinches back as a wave of lashing darkness surrounds the boy, wracking sobs sounding out from the center of the mass of black. He casts a uncertain glance at Shiru, the Guide's copper eyes sad in an otherwise impassive face.  
  
"Don't do anything, Ansem. He is in a great deal of spiritual pain, although of a different type than what pained him before." Shiru shakes his head. "I wish Aku would not manipulate him so."  
  
Ansem backs away from the wild energy. "What's wrong with him?" he whispers, fear in his cinnamon eyes.  
  
"The Heartless..." The broken voice drifts out of the fading darkness. "They took another world... So many people are dead..." The darkness fades away entirely, Oni huddled on the ground, his jet eyes downcast as they fade back to the crystal blue. "Gomen nasai, Ansem-sama. I did not mean to lose my control. Please forgive me."  
  
Ansem remains silent.  
  
TBC  
  
******************************************  
  
Iie: No  
  
Gomen nasai: Sorry  
  
Ergh... It's long, but I feel like it's missing something... And I can't get that last bit to sound right to me. *Glares at baka muses* I wish they would help, but NO, they're all fighting over Inuyasha-chan and Sesshy-sama.  
  
Muses: Er... ^_^;;  
  
So, the Booster for this chapter: Takeo's outfit!  
  
Well, way, way, WAY back when, it was grey-green pants, a greeny-yellow shirt, and an olive-green jacket. Can we say "Bor-ing?" Then it evolved to having *Gasp* Three belts! And the jacket draped over the shoulder!  
  
Yawn-a-delic... -_-  
  
Then, one day during my 'Cat-girls/boys' phase, I drew a purdy cat-boy with silver-streaked brown hair, and Malik's clothing. (You know, the latest YuGiOh baddie?) And then I said, "Hey! That looks neat and not-boring!"  
  
Then, following the idea, I went on to a Takeo with a wine-red tank, black pants, and three belts. He also looked more like a girl than Kuja (FFIX). *Grimace* But... I liked the idea.  
  
Now, he has a hooded light violet tank top, purple-tinted black flares, and those three belts again, in shades of blue and purple. Who can say Major Difference? From my starting point, I mean.  
  
Now THAT was a waste of time...  
  
Well, please review, minna-dono. I need to go clean my room, so ja ne!... 


	25. Plot Filler: A Little Broken

As I havn't updated in forever, and the next chapter is only about half-finished because of computer problems, here is a... Filler. *Shudders in horror* But seriously, this entire chapter will be me fiddling with writing styles and levels of formality during flashbacks. ^_^;; Half of it's probaly's gonna be junk, but what the heck! It's a filler.  
  
However, for all that it moves the plot forward about zilch, it does have some plot *points*. So I'd read it anyway. ^_^;;  
  
Lily: *Thriving in the angst and depression and metaphores* This is MY kind of story!  
  
Warning: Flashbacks. Lots of them. Taking place about a year after Neko gets her Keyblades, making her eight, Takeo nine, Anzu seven, Oni ten. And pushing of the pg-13 rating, to more like R or so, for suicide and other such cheery things.  
  
Dis: ~Bid my blood to run! Before I come undone! Save me from the nothing I've become! Bring me to life... (I've been living a lie, there's nothing inside) Bring me to life!~  
  
Maybe I should change "Disclaimer" to "Random Song of the Day." Ne, whadda you think?  
  
******  
  
TRANSALATIONS:  
  
Onegai: please  
  
Anou: a sort of hesitation noise  
  
Nakanaide: You're crying  
  
Imouto: Little sister  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Plot Filler- A Little Broken  
  
*********************  
  
"Hey, Neko?"  
  
"Yeah, Seph-dono?"  
  
"Why do you hide everything? You keep it all inside, but if you do that too long... You break apart."  
  
The girl looks down, sinking deeper into the large chair. The midnight-dark leather seems to make her even smaller. She doesn't respond.  
  
"It's scary to break, Neko."  
  
She sighs, turning her beautiful perrywinkle eyes towards the tall man. "I know. I've been broken for a long, long time now."  
  
Looking down before he sees the sine of wetness in her eyes, she sighs again.   
  
A long silence. "Does your brother know?"  
  
"Sort of. Not really. I haven't told him... He doesn't say anything. You're the first person who has."  
  
"Just... Try to pick up the peices. It's going to be really, really hard, you know.  
  
"Maybe..."  
  
**********  
  
I cried in a corner of his room, the glow of sunset painting a bloody streak across the wall.  
  
I couldn't even remember what the argument was about. Something silly, but you had been so stubborn. And I lost a little bit of my calm- I had started yelling- you had yelled back, tears flooding your faded eyes. Then you just screamed at me, throwing blunt shards of coldness every direction, sheilding yourself from anything. I slamed out, but I heard you crying...  
  
When you didn't come out for a day, I was worried. I went to Aerith,and she went to your rooms...  
  
I didn't think we'd ever be able to get the blood out of the pale carpet.   
  
There was so much, lying all around you, blending with the melted ice to make a dull pink pool. You were unconsious, you wrists barely nicked, but enough to let some of your life spill on the floor...  
  
Aerith said that if we had been even an hour later, you would have been beyond recovery. Kami, I still don't know how long have lasted after that... I went to Sephiroth, and he got a look on his face.  
  
"She... She really broke altogether." He had looked down on me, I had looked up at him, the man I had grown to trust so much in just a year, and he saw how close to hysterics I was. His eyes widened. "Oh, Takeo, hope that..." He kneeled in front of me, touched the side of my face, wraped his arms around me as I started to cry.  
  
"Hush..." His wing curved gently around me, the black feathers comfortingly close, and tears continued to spring unbidden from my eyes.  
  
You once said that I cry quietly, and that I look an absolute horror while doing so. I think I must of then, because Sephiroth looked away even as he held me comfortingly close. He held his arms even tighter aroung me, litfted me so that he could sit in one of those black leather chairs.  
  
"How could she?..." The question is interuppted by a hiccup. "My sister... She's only... she's my only..." I cryed harder again, burying my face into Sephiroth's shirt.  
  
**********  
  
The little boy cries to me, his thin, pale hands clutching to my trenchcoat, face pressed into the grey cloth of my shirt. I don't know what to do, he keeps on sobbing out fragments of sentences, and all I can really do is wrap my arms around him and try not to cry myself-  
  
:: Why? :: is the only thing going through my head, :: Why would she give up so soon? :: Neko, not yet nine years old, and she's willing to take her own life...  
  
She's just a child.  
  
"You're all only... children..."  
  
************  
  
:: My wrists feel funny. ::  
  
:: They're aching. ::  
  
I'm tired. I don't really feel anything... It's like a dream, but crystal clear, and it doesn't hurt. Almost more of a... Dream...  
  
"Why?... Just... Tell me that. You're so young..."  
  
The voice... It sees so familiar...  
  
:: Anou... I guess I am young... ::  
  
A quiet sniffling.  
  
"Takeo, she's going to be alright. She just... lost some blood..."  
  
"Sephy... Could you leave me alone? Just for a bit..."  
  
"... Alright."  
  
:: Takeo?... What does he want?::  
  
"Neko..." His young voice strains against his tight throat. "...You didn't... have to do this..."  
  
I hear him sniff again.  
  
"Onegai... "  
  
My eyes drift open. "Takeo? Why did you say please..."  
  
His tear-stained face drifts over me, looking so far away, but so very close... Kami-sama, he looks dreadful.  
  
"Anou... nakanaide..." My hand drifts up. I'm confused by the snowy bandages, wraped so tightly around my wrist, but I touch his damp cheek.  
  
He draws in a sharp breath, then clutches at my hand. "Imouto-chan... Don't ever leave me alone again... Onegai..."  
  
A tear falls onto my face.  
  
~~ Owari... for now. ~~  
  
End of the dreaded filler. ^^;; I'll try to update chapter 4-13 soon, 'kay?  
  
Ja ne! 


	26. Poetry Filler

Life + Moving + New School = Chaotic (See bio for greater details). Hence, a few poems for your enjoyment until my brother's computer (Which has the next chapter half-done on it) is up, running, and connected to the internet.  
  
Table of Contents:  
  
1. See (Oni!POV)  
  
2. Nonexistent (ENEG!POV)  
  
3. Thoughts (Miru!POV)  
  
Disclaimer (AKA Random Song of the Day): ~ Cold are the people, winter of life. We tremble in shadows this cold endless night... Frozen in the snow lies roses, sleeping- Flowers that will echo the sunrise! Fire of hope is our only warmth; Weary, its flame will be dying soon. ~  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
See  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
Kittens, children, a life filled with hope,  
  
A heart so heavy- towards light it can't grope  
  
Danger, battles, thick blood on the ground,  
  
While haunting black fog swirls all around  
  
A shimmering beacon of hope in the distance,  
  
So close, but too far to see,  
  
The creeping black fog clutches my ankles-  
  
It's trying to swallow me  
  
It's close to the point of devouring everything,  
  
Run fast, just keep on running  
  
And life as we know hangs in the balance-  
  
It's tipping the scale of reality...  
  
Darkness heavy, the brightness fades,  
  
No beacon of warmth shines in the distance-  
  
Not to see, and not for me  
  
Perhaps not for you, but who knows what is true?  
  
Not I, for I cannot see  
  
It's always brighter when you're not looking hard,  
  
Look too hard, and you simply can't see  
  
The way it is with me  
  
And I shall therefore...  
  
Never...  
  
See  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
Nonexistent  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
Coldness creeping through a faint heart,  
  
Strong minds invaded by endless sorrow,  
  
A hopeless battle for truth and warmth,  
  
Wearily, we guard each decision,  
  
Some just wishing for chaos to end  
  
A tilting universe, spin roughly away,  
  
WE cannot do a thing, but you can,  
  
Tortured children, too young for their task,   
  
Hidden distances fading at last-  
  
We cannot lift a finger, though,  
  
Never directly to move-  
  
So tortured children must do  
  
All things- stop the tilting-  
  
Put the darkness back in it's place-  
  
Maybe just for a moment, though,  
  
Until heavy, hungry darkness awakens  
  
And it may mean nothing at all.  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
Thoughts  
  
.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.\*/.  
  
She's too rash-  
  
Too swift to anger or smile-  
  
Too brilliant, silly, kind, cruel, too set or too open in mind-  
  
Far too trusting, so untrusting, babbles worse then a bubbling brook,  
  
So silent you'd think she was dead  
  
A grin for the future, a tear from the past,  
  
Feral gold eyes for the now  
  
Dreams of the nothing filling her night,  
  
Nothing is there filling her life,  
  
A beautiful grace, a pale kitten face,  
  
A fury like nothing I've known,  
  
Long silver hair, a braid plaited there,  
  
And lavender eyes, asking why... 


	27. Until You Make Me Move

'Kay, to summarize:  
  
I got fed up with overloads of idea, scenes that I wanted to write SOON, and lines that are pure genius spilling all over the floor and dribbling down the drain. So I'm going to write THIS chapter, covering the people I haven't touched on in a while, and weren't planning to touch on in the chapter that's on my brother's (Still dysfunctional) computer. So we'll be seeing Anzu-Kairi-Marjani-Nami, Sephy-luv, Leon & co., and assorted other people that I've been ignoring. And I might very well re-write what happens during the other chapter, involving Neko, Miru, and Dark Magician Girl. We'll just have to wait and see, ne?  
  
Reveiws: SamaraRose7 (24:That they are, Jess- But Koga's still cooler. ^_^ 25: Ne, sorta the idea. *Grin* And speaking of likes, I saw the coolest dragon necklaces at Spencer- I took one look at them and thought "Jessica". Then I looked at the other necklaces, and thought "Kikyo" and "Yugi Mouto"... *Laugh* It was weird. 26: Yeah, I miss you and wish I could talk to you too... But, as pointed out, Ian's computer isn't up yet, and you know the problems I've been having with my OWN- *Glares at computer and stabs it with Rei Enpitsu* -so e-mail doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. *Sigh* My life HERE is not anywhere NEAR average, but it's still probably about as boring as yours is.) Maji the Blue Mage (*Glowing in happiness* You really think I've gotten better? Sugoi! ^_^ And please, DON'T calm down, it's so much fun reading your reviews... *Smile*)  
  
Disclaimer: ~ Sand beneath my feet, waves upon the sand, life so long ago remembering your hand, the islands once were lost, but you will soon be found... ~  
  
Warnings: Eh, the normal stuff- angst, darkness, Heartless, and more original charries than you could shake a Keyblade at. Also, my dad's computer doesn't like FF.net, and I haven't ever written Experimental on this computer before, so things like barriers/lines around the title/those little squiggles before settings/Symbols around ENEG speech are all approximations. ^^;; Nothing to copy from or check against, you see.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Thirteen  
  
Until You Make Me Move  
  
*********************  
  
^ Well. That didn't work. ^  
  
Mickey shoots an irritated look at no place in particular. His 'vacation' had lasted all of a day, before nerves and worry drove him back to working on the problem at hand. Well, pacing on nothing while giving irritated orders and annoyed opinions. "We need Miru back! You ARE working on finding him, right?"  
  
The Prophesy of Light would have rolled his eyes if he had any. ^ No, I'm teaching Anima how to play dice. Of course I'm looking for him. But he can't spare much energy for me to track down, since holding a body without an anchor takes most of what he's got. ^  
  
A headache building behind his eyes, Mickey rubs his forehead with one glove. "That was one of the silliest things he's ever DONE. He's been picking up on that girl he spends all he time talking to- either her, or Anima." A sigh. "We really need-"  
  
^ Speaking of Anima, she just sent a report that Riku's talking to himself again. ^  
  
"Argh..."  
  
^ You probably shouldn't have left him all alone in the Heart. Anyone would go insane, and he wasn't exactly balanced before. ^  
  
"I know, I know, everyone's said that to me, but I couldn't run things properly without him figuring out what's going on."  
  
^ Well, wouldn't that be better, in this case? He's really not the most important piece in this particular game, and he's still intelligent enough to make his own moves. I wish I could say that of some of my important pieces. ^  
  
"... Could you stop talking like this is a board game?"  
  
^ You know what they say about bad habits. ^  
  
"... I WISH Miru were here."  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Destiny Island  
  
Anzu calmly packs a small bag, spear strapped to her back between her wings, two wakizashi thrust through her belt, leather pouch of healing potions dangling in front of the short swords. Kairi watches through bloodshot, tearful eyes, sitting cross-legged on Anzu's bed, her own bag and heavy stave next to her.  
  
Nami sticks her head in, alien features worried as she looks at Kairi. "Hey, are you two ready yet? Marjani already has most of the things that we'll need in that bag of hers..."  
  
Anzu smiles at the Guide. "Just a moment." Grabbing a hairbrush and one last halter top, she pushes them into the bag, pulls it shut, and pulls the straps over her shoulder. Kairi stands, pulling her own bag on and griping the stave tightly.  
  
They leave the small house, Anzu walking close to her foster mother.  
  
"Anou..."  
  
Marjani turns to look at Anzu. "What?"  
  
"What are we going to do?... I mean, where are we going, and... Well, you know what I mean."  
  
Turning as well, Nami smiles grimly as she walks backwards. "We need you two to save every world in all universes, obviously. Although your siblings-" Nami looks at Kairi, "- and old friends will be running around doing most of the work. You're both backup, in a way."  
  
Marjani's quiet voice drips with sarcasm. "It feels so nice to know that you're not actually needed, doesn't it?"  
  
Anzu nods, thoughtfully chewing a strand of hair. "I felt like that, once. But you usually mean more than you thi-" Her eyes widen. "Nami, did you say my siblings? Oneesama, my niisans? You know her- them?!"  
  
Nami shrugs. "I know OF them- all of us, we need to stay at least fairly up-to-date on a few people. Neko, Takeo, and Oni are some of those people.  
  
Anzu stops walking. "Tell me! I need to know- My oneesama- Is Neko all right? It's been six years-" Long absent tears flood her blue eyes as she stares pleadingly at the Guides. "She was so angry at niisan, niichan, Takeo was Dreaming, and everything was so confusing, and then I was here, and- Please! She's fine, right?"  
  
Her pale face turned away, Marjani sighs. "On the outside, she's just fine. On the inside... No one's quite sure. She tried to kill herself, a while back, and Miru says she's always crying in her heart."  
  
Anzu's face pales, the tears spilling down her cheeks. "Oneesama... We HAVE to go to her!"  
  
"So I've told Miru," agrees Nami. "And he gave me permission to use my judgment on when."  
  
"And me," adds Marjani. "It's going to be a joint decision."  
  
Kairi's face is calm, for all that her eyes and cheeks are reddened with tears. "Nami, when you said old friends, you meant Sora and Riku, didn't you?" Her voice is thick from crying, but otherwise hopeful.  
  
"Well... Yes." Nami looks half-way away, but the darkened centers of her dusty blue eyes still examine to Kairi. "But we are in the same situation with them as with Anzu's brothers and sister."  
  
"Before you ask, though, they're both fine." Bitterness covers the next few words. "Only Riku hears voices that aren't there. Sora hears voices too, but HE'S supposed to. Now he is, at least."  
  
Nami frowns faintly at Marjani, obviously disturbed by the dispassionately unhappy tone in the whispery voice.   
  
**************************************  
  
Wakizashi: Basically, short katanas. Aoshi from Rurouni Kenshin uses them during the Kyoto arc.  
  
Anou: Err... Umm...  
  
Oneesama: Very respectful way of saying 'older sister'- Anzu's usage for Neko  
  
Niisan: (Normal level of respect) Older brother- Anzu's usage for Oni.  
  
Niichan: (Normal level of respect, the chan suffix is more affectionate or intimate than san.) Older brother- Anzu's usage for Takeo.  
  
*****  
  
WAI~!!! :D  
  
I now own NINE manga altogether, a book on drawing anime and game charries, a Rurouni Kenshin DVD, and I happen to know that for Christmas I'll be getting a Kenshin wall scroll! Wai~! ^_^  
  
Of course, now I also know I can get every episode of Rurouni Kenshin they've never shown on Cartoon Network and all four movies for only $296.64... On DVD, discounted from the retail price by going to rightstuff.com, that is. And shipping/tax is probably GHASTLY... ^^;;  
  
But, back to the DVD.  
  
I'm falling in love. At a rate a minor male character per episode. -_-;; Somebody, please slap me silly so I stop drooling at Saito during the two seconds he appears during the opening. Then do it again for Aoshi and Hiko, although they actually APPEAR during the show.  
  
Ember: *Growl* She's stealing all MY bishies, folks.  
  
Well... Yeah... But, seriously, were you LISTENING to Aoshi's Japanese voice? *Does her hands-to-heart, dreamy sigh while melting in her chair thing- You know the one I'm talking about, Jess* It's just so gorgeous... So is Kenshin's voice, even though he sounds really girly, especially when getting annoyed at Hiko-sama... Who also sounds beautiful... *Another dreamy-sigh-melt-thing* *Falls out of her chair* ORO! @_@  
  
Ember: -_-;; Baka. I'll end this now, since she's just trailing on and on. We'll see you next time, yadda yadda yadda, hopefully that other chapter will be finished and up pretty so, now leave a review before she starts babbling again so she can gush at you next chapter. Ja. 


	28. When You Walk Away

Note: I've edited this chapter after I posted it. I was in such a rush, I didn't make sure everything was finished... So a couple things got taken out, and a couple put in, 'kay? To make up for messing up, I have a link to the COOLEST web site in history:  
  
http://www.ansemreport.com/  
  
GO THERE. It has EVERYTHING about KH, KH: Chain of Memories, and KH2, as well as a lot of rare media, downloads of assorted trailers/secret endings, and- get this- a partially transalated, absolutely beautifully done Kingdom Hearts *MANGA*. (It's so CUTE when Sora leaps at the Darkside, yelling "Hey, Ugly! Yer face is wide open!" ^^ Wai~!)  
  
Now, on to the edited:  
  
***  
  
GO~O~OMEN! Please please PLEASE forgive me for taking so long! Again! Lack of access to computers... :(  
  
Reviewers: SamaraRose7 (Thanksies, Jess! ^_^ Ow... US Gov? *Wince* I hate learning about that stuff. And tell Andrea that I've been fine, but I miss her. *Sniff* Even if I do have new friends, only one of them even compares to you two. *Gets smacked by Ember for being sentimental* ORO~! @_@), Maji the Blue Mage (Yeah... It was doing that to me, too. But it's fixed now! ^_^ And about the manga? For a long time, *I* only had three- my Gundam Wing trio. And I've heard of Tokyo Mew Mew. Sounds cute. ^_^ And is this really that large? *Pokes at it* Well... Actually, it is, isn't it? ^^;; Getting included into Kingdom Hearts? I'd do all of those at the exact same time, actually. And Chibi Kenshin-chan, I think Vivi knew, he just mentioned it only when Maji-dono was being particuarly hyper. ^_^)  
  
Warnings: Miru getting mistaken for a girl by a smart four-year-old. *Giggle* Also, lotsa hypothesies, angsting about what wasn't heard, and a little bit of Authouress Being A Pain.  
  
Disclaimer: *Snarls at Lawyers* Just you TRY.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Fourteen  
  
When You Walk Away  
  
*********************  
  
Miss a step, trip and fall  
  
Miss the path, meet the wall  
  
Miss the way, miss a turn  
  
Gettin' lost's how you learn  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
Geran stares wide-eyed at Miru. "Oh! Are you another project for Mother? That's just bully!"  
  
Everyone blinks at the smiling child. Then Neko bursts out into giggles, covering her mouth with a hand as she doubles over, silver hair falling out of its loose ponytail around her face. Miru blinks his again, his voice fainter than usual.  
  
"What?..."  
  
Geran stares innocently up at the confused guide. "You're pretty enough for Mother to work on for a while."  
  
Dark Magician Girl starts to chuckle melodiously, bright eyes sparkling with mirth. Miru looks rather lost, staring alternatively at the laughing teens and the just-as-clueless toddler.  
  
"Miru-san, Geran-kun thinks you're a ... a girl!" Neko and Dark Magician Girl laugh even harder after Neko gasps out the sentence. A pale blush spreads across Miru's cheeks.  
  
"... Oh..."  
  
Neko stops laughing for a moment. "You know, I've known you almost my entire life, and this is the first time you've been speechless." She starts giggling again.  
  
"Kitten... We really do not have time to be wasting... I must speak to you very soon."  
  
Sobering imediately, she frowns at the serious, grim tone in the Guide's voice. "Alright... But you'll really have to explain to me why you're HERE, Miru-san. You've always just been in my head..."  
  
"Do you know where we could speak right now? There are many things, and it it is best to tell them without one of the people of this world hearing them... This world is still pure from the outside."   
  
"Anou... If I lock to door to the room Dark Magician Girl and I share, no one will try to get in."  
  
"That will work."  
  
Neko gives him her normal cheery smile.  
  
**********  
  
"So, basically, you got tired of doing nothing and came out into the normal world, just so you were up close?"  
  
Miru winces. "Kitten..." He looks down. "Please do not phrase it that way. I realized that the directions I had been giving you were unclear, and if things continued for you without direct intervision, the balance could be tilted even farther off."  
  
"Hmm." Neko frowns thoughtfully, looking out the window. "You know, you HAVE been very vauge about everything, so far. Why don't you just come out and tell me everything?" She smiles slightly, turning back to face him. "It would save SO much yelling of 'why didn't you tell me this earlier' and such, ne?"  
  
"Well... Sorry, kitten, but I can't. Balance. I must wait for the right moments, the correct times. But now that I am actually here, those are much more flexible." He smiles apologetically. "I really cannot do very much, even now."  
  
A sigh. "Well, at least you're trying, Miru-san." She smiles at him. "Sometimes you can't help having restrictions."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ FLASHBACK ~~~~  
  
{A/N: 'Ore-sama'= a personal pronoun- I, me, my- Just so ya know.}  
  
:: Kuso gaki- it's about bloody time she did that! Ahou Miru's morals-::  
  
Ore-sama had nurtured the anger and hate, strenghtening Ore-sama's power over the child's emotions, and now she strikes out at the foolish boy, his anger- the anger Ore-sama carefully molded out of concern for Takeo- washing half away at the feral look in her eyes. The disbeleif, fear, and muddled confusion filling his mind doesn't stop his reactions, though, and he steps easily to the side, a hand raised in defense. But the hand doesn't stop, Ore-sama turns the defensive gesture into a blow-  
  
The girl crumples. "Well, at least I can fight her now. That prohibition was getting annoying."  
  
The little girl's eyes widen suddenly, those constant- annoying- tears welling up. The foolish child- so weak, so pitiful, always cowering behind 'oneesama'. "NIISAN! Where are you?!" She stares accusingly at Ore-sama. "Who are you?!"  
  
Ore-sama turned the boy's back to them, ignoring the little girl's weeping. What do they matter? Ore-sama has ore-sama's own reasons for being here. Foolish, soft Miru. He thinks these pathetic creatures can do what ORE-TACHI cannot.  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
"Although sometimes we think there're restrictions and there aren't. Are you SURE that's all you can tell me?" Neko tilts her head, waiting for an answer.  
  
A ever-so-slightly tired sigh. "I'll think, Kitten." He looks up at her. "Do you know who I would speak to to receive temporary living quarters?"  
  
"Ce'Nedra-chan, most likely. Would you like me to talk to her?"   
  
"If it is not too much trouble... I would appreciate it."  
  
"Okay! I'll go see her!" Neko grins, waves two fingers jauntily at Miru in a demi-salute, unlocks the door, and walks out of the room.  
  
The guide sighs, sitting heavily on the bed. "Shimatta," he mummers , burying his face in his hands. "I can't keep this going... I didn't realize how hard this would be, without an anchor... The others don't know how easy they have it."  
  
*********************  
  
~~~~~ Graziar  
  
Oka is angry.  
  
Niji- Sweet, mischevious, childish Niji- Has gone too far. Far, FAR too far. Because no one- NO ONE- touches Oka's ponytail, aside from Oka himself. Let alone pulls out the ribbon holding it.  
  
Especially not when it's Oka's favorite blue cotton ribbon, a dark rich color to match his shirt, the elaborite goldenrod-colored embrodery tracing black-maned dragons along its graceful lengths, the ends touched with iridecent white thread and just long enough to flutter when the wearer moves. Yes, Oka loves this ribbon, more than any other possesion of his. Unfortunately making it a perfect target for his immature companion's tricks and pranks.  
  
So sweet, mischevious, childish Niji is currently being chased along a rocky, rough, almost-vertical road by a furious Oka. And as Niji skips lightly from the top of one rock to the top of another, pale hair and oversized sleaves fluttering, Oka follows close behind, his hair falling to the middle of his back in a lack-of-ponytail sort of hairstyle.  
  
Zeff, Sora and Takeo are walking a few dozen yards behind, talking quietly as they inch their way carefully down the slope.  
  
"As far as I could tell, Ansem was gone for good. As well as my best friend, and... And Kairi. I never..." Sora turns to Takeo, blue eyes shimering with unshed wetness. "I called to her that I loved her, when she was almost gone, but I don't think she heard me. There was this vast music surrounding everything, as the stars started to shimmer back to life again, almost as if everything was struming a... I don't know, a cosmic harp, and every string was plucked together, and it drowned out everything. She probably couldn't hear me..." Sora stumbles slightly, both Takeo and Zeff reaching out to steady him in almost identical movements.  
  
"S-sorry..."  
  
Takeo looks grimly up at Sora. "I know what that's like, not being able to tell that one little thing. Niisama... I loved him dearly, he was so much to me. We would always run about the castle, playing tag with Neko, while Anzu would sorta flutter after us. The heartless rarely bothered us- we were so happy, just doing kid stuff. But then... Anou... Ansem came back. Oni was the only one caught- he tripped Ansem up, using all the dark magic he knew, while the rest of us ran." Takeo stares hard at the ground, aqua eyes smoldering. "He was the only one who even recognized Ansem. He was so scared... Anzu could feel it. Then... Anzu said he... Blinked out. For only a few minutes, but when he came back together, she said he felt... diffrent. But after Ansem let him go, he didn't seem hurt. Only... Well, I guess parinoid, scarred on the inside. His eyes would go from a... Anou, a sort of forced happy purple, I guess you could call it, into this one shade of blue, when he thought no one was watching. It's very a pale sort of color, like a blue topaz with light shining through it. And it meant... Pain, I guess. The pain going on inside, not outside.  
  
"He and Neko started quarreling, and he got angry so easily, it sometimed seemed like he was someone else. He would talk about plans no one had any idea about, and his eyes... They sometimes GLOWED yellow, during those moments. I started to feel scared, around Niisama.  
  
"Then, about three years after... Well, everything with the Heartless... Neko started to get careless. She would do things that were reckless, at least to us- borrow food from the kitchen when someone was there, staying in the same room as someone, peeking in on people for no reason. And then Leon saw her. And about a fortnight later, Oni released the Heartless."  
  
Takeo stops walking, his eyes flickering with barely surpressed lightning.  
  
"I never, once, told Anzu that I loved her. She was the sweetest thing in the Bastion, and was always creeping about in Neko's shadow, and always there, and then... She was gone. And Oni- I had to watch as imouto-chan killed him."  
  
Zeff places a hand on Takeo's shoulder, ignoring the pain searing up his arm from the uncontroled electricity around the boy. "Takeo... They're not dead."  
  
"O-oro?! Wh-what do you mean? I saw Oni- And- And- But-" Takeo fades off, aware that he sounds like an idiot.  
  
"They went to other places, when you thought they died. Anzu, she has been living with her mother for the last six years, although they don't know they are related. And Oni... He's in another in-between place, like here, except more... In-between, and dark." Zeff looks gravely down at Takeo. "They're very much alive, although those scars you speak of... Have become worse."  
  
Now, going back to the Comic Releif, Niji has been caught by the furious Oka. And is being nooggied to death. Just goes to show what you should never do to certain black-haired Guides.  
  
Stayed tuned for more "Not to do to Oka" lessons! ^_^  
  
*********************  
  
Shiru and Oni talk quietly, leaving Ansem to his own devices.   
  
Which are not many. Ansem can pretty much either think, daydream, remember, or meditate, and two of the four are not pleasant things. The other two, daydreaming and meditating, he hasn't done for so long that he isn't quite sure how to anymore. So, he begins thinking- Lesser of two evils, since almost all his memories are painful, and the few that are not have faded.  
  
:: Oni has released the Heartless. ::  
  
Ansem doesn't know why or how Oni did that, since after the first promising signs of darkness breed into a living heart, Oni had seemed to fade into a kind, light-hearted child. But then, Oni did sometimes seem to be a colder, more dangerous and calculating person. Now that Ansem thinks about it, whenever that odd blindfold is on, or Oni's eyes glow the same color as those of the Heartless. But what would be so tramatizing that Oni would have to create another personality, one that seemingly- Remembering the incident where Oni lost all control- one that seemingly harms the original personality.  
  
:: I'm alive. ::  
  
Ah, HERE is a puzzle. After the child named Sora summoned the light of Kingdom Hearts, Ansem seemed to be dead- at least in his own veiw. True, there were no Pearly Gates, or Cosmic Judge, or anything but a seemingly blank, eternal nothing- Or lack of anything, perhaps, since nothing doesn't quite fit. Then, after being alone with nothing but his own fading conciousnence and a drain of the blackness that had stained his heart. Then, that smooth, faint voice had called him back from the edge of unknowing, and... Here he is.  
  
Why was he called back? Why is he needed again? Ansem has no urge for the darkness anymore, and if possible, less for light. Could it be that they need a totally nuteral person thrown into the mix? And who would 'they' happen to be?  
  
Perhaps...  
  
Ansem looks over at the strange, colorless boy speaking quietly with Oni. No one Ansem has EVER seen has skin so lacking in color, although the shimmering grey hair is less unusual. But the shape of Shiru's feartures, and those softly glowing copper eyes- the alien strangeness suggests something that might be... A little above human? And that soft, whispery voice, like the strings of a mellow acoustic guitar strummed a million miles away- So similar to the voice that called him back... Perhaps the same voice, even?  
  
Would Shiru be one of many hypothetical 'they'?   
  
Perhaps.  
  
Perhaps not.  
  
But Ansem is going to try and find out.  
  
*********************  
  
Glosarry:  
  
-san: I hope I don't STILL have to tell people this... ^^;;A level of respect around "Mr.", "Mrs.", or "Ms." Pretty much normal level.  
  
-kun: Ditto on the first comment. ^^;; You would call someone of equal or lower status (Usually male) this. Used for clasmates, friends, people you grew up with, are fairly close to, ect... Yugi uses this for just about everyone, in the Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh.  
  
Anou: Umm... (A sort of hesitation noise, when you're thinking of something to say)  
  
Ne: Right, isn't that so?  
  
Kuso gaki: Rotten brat  
  
Ore-sama: Mweh... Aku's way of reffering to himself. Basically, 'Lord Me.' -_-;; Evil egotistical ahou Aku...  
  
Ore-tachi: Literally, it's a plural 'I'. 'Tachi' is a suffix to show a group, so *Insert personal prounoun*-tachi is 'we', *Name*-tachi is *Name* and *Name*'s buddies, ect.  
  
Ahou: Like 'baka', but... a little less polite. ^^;; My, my, Aku has quite a mouth, doesn't he?  
  
Niisan: (older) Brother  
  
-Sama: HIGH respect, 'lord' or 'lady'.  
  
-Chan: Please, PLEASE tell me you already know this?  
  
Shimatta: Lit. 'I ended up doing it," but the connotation is more like "I messed up"  
  
Niisama: (older) Brother  
  
Imouto-chan: Little sister-chan  
  
Oro: A sound effect that appears over people's heads in anime or manga, that a select few actually say. That is, three people in the known multiverse- Me, Takeo and Himura Kenshin (Not to be confused with Kenshin Himura, who merely says 'huh?', but to make up for the lack of sessha-ing and oro-ing has the transalation of the 'gozaru' tag- 'That I am, That I will, That it is,' and other examples of what Mom calls doubletalk.)  
  
**********  
  
'Fruits Basket' RULES. I mean, seriously, it's the second-funniest-and-wierdest-anime-EVER, first being FLCL, and it has more REALLY CUTE BISHIES than you can shake a youkai at! *_* Purdy Yuki-kun... Purdy Kyo-kun... Purdy possibilities of yaoi between Yuki-kun and Kyo-kun even though Yuki-kun and Tohru-chan are falling in love... *_*  
  
*Gets smacked* Oro... @_@  
  
Well, here in fabulous, beautiful South Dakota, there are two things. One, it is COLD. And COLD is an understatement. The "highs are in the single-digit negative, lows and windchill adding up to negitive hundreds" sort of cold that you normally only see in... Actually, North Dakota and Minnisota. ^^;; Two, today on the bus, the seat next to John (The coolest guy in a black leather trenchcoat you'll see outside of FFVII) was taken, and the kid wouldn't move, so I got to sit on John's (Also the coolest friend I have here) lap. Sure, kids kept on asking how long we've been going out, but I didn't really mind. Besides being fun to talk to and hang out with, John's really, REALLY cute. *Drools*  
  
But, even with cool, cute, fun John around, I miss all my friends in Minnisota... *Sniffle* *Sneeze* Brr... Cold... 


	29. I Can Hear You Speaking

Oops... This is a bit late, ne? ^^;; Sorry! I was just trying to wrap up Kurayami in a good, long chappie, and... Eheh... Don't kill me? Please?  
  
Well, remember that survey a while back, asking whether or not anyone would mind some slash mixed in? And how I said I WOULDN'T put it any shounen-ai in? We~ell...  
  
I lied. ^^;; There IS going to be one-sided boy/boy attraction in here... Because my brain and Jo just wouldn't shut up about this one pairing... And neither would my creativity... Yeah. ^^;; Soo... On with the last chapter of Segment Four?  
  
Reveiwers: SamaraRose7 (Heh... I'm not sure if you caught the edited version, but that explained a little more clearly, and I fixed quite a few mistakes. And for Japanese, I DO have those glossarys at the bottom... I'm sorry I missed you too! But here's a very belated seasons greetings, anyway. And as for the note... *Looks gloomy* I got a sappy letter from Mrs. Hayes, and a sorry note from from the person who sent the note. If you don't know who sent it, I won't tell you, but... *Sniffle* Why did SHE have to the the one who sent it? If it had been nearly anyone else, I could have shrugged it off, but... Her? *Sniffle*...)  
  
Warnings: Very Neko-centric, since almost everyone but Neko-tachi is ready to go off to do their parts. And a slightly... Spooky? Creepy? Wrenching?... scene involving a Heartless, mental tourture, threats, and more than a little pain for me. Also, some semi-surprizing info that probably isn't TOTALLY accurate, since we don't have the Belgariad unpacked so I can check it. Was it 'Lord' or 'King'?...  
  
Random Song of the Day (AKA Disclaimer): ~ Shiru! Shiru! Shiru shir hadash! Shiru! Hariu! Kol ha-a-a-a-retz!~  
  
  
  
********************  
  
Experimental  
  
Kurayami: Part Fifteen  
  
I Can Hear You Speaking  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~~~ Belgariad.  
  
Dark Magician Girl is waiting in the hall, and Neko nods to her as she sets off to see Ce'Nerda. The Duel Monster follows Neko, a curious look on her face.  
  
"Who in all the worlds IS he?"  
  
Neko shrugs as she turns around to face the Duel Monster, walking backwards. "I'm not quite sure, really. I've know him for years... But this is the first time I've MET him, so to speak. Anou... He floats around in the back of my mind alot, doling out either bad advice or mystical prophesies." Neko looks off into the distance, thinking, and promptly trips over her own feet.  
  
"CHIKUSHOU~!" Neko hisses out her large vocabulary of swearwords, rubbing her elbow where it hit the floor, and Dark Magician Girl chuckles.  
  
"Well," giggle, "that's what you get when you think and walk backwards."  
  
Neko glares at Dark Magician Girl for a moment, then rolls her pale violet eyes and stands up, rubbing her elbow. "Not funny," she says, "Not funny at all."  
  
"If you say so, Neko."  
  
Neko hisses at the jokingly condesating tone, then sticks her turned-up nose into the air.  
  
Dark Magician Girl laughs at Neko, ruffling the girl's silvery hair. "Well, are you going to tell me more about this person you know, but havn't met?"  
  
Neko looks miffed, but continues.  
  
"He started hanging around when I was, let me see, about seven years old. A LOT of bad stuff was going on, back then. I lost half of my family... But he showed up, helped me and my brother figure out what to do, and stuck around after that. Or at least, he was there about half the time. When I was nine, I tried to commit suicide, and he was ALWAYS there, after that. We're good friends, now, in our way, but, as I said... I've never actually met him before now." Neko shrugs, absently brushing her bangs back. "I never even knew he HAD a name, before now. It's very appropriate, though, ne?" Neko smiles up at the blond. "Miru... The action of seeing, sight, a poetic way to say 'eye', all that sort of stuff. Yes, VERY appropriate."  
  
They reach the door to the Royal suite, where Geran's parents (Garion and Ce'Nedra, joint rulers of Riva, Lord and Lady of the West, Ce'Nerda being refered to as Queen of the World in melinnia-old prophesies, and Garion also happening to be the Godslayer and one of the two living people who can touch the Orb of Aldur, that is, if Eriond, new God of Agnarak, could be considered 'living'...) tend to reside while not running around doing King-And-Queen sorts of stuff.  
  
Neko knocks on the rather over-elaborate door.  
  
After a moment, a maid opens the door, staring at the two with wide eyes as she curtseies.  
  
"Hullo, miss," Neko begins, giving the maid a cheefull smile, "Is the queen in there, by any chance?"  
  
"Er, yes, she is, mi'lady. Should I go tell her Majesty you're here?"   
  
"Yep!"  
  
The maid curtsies again, backing into the room and closing the door.  
  
Dark Magician Girl shakes her head. "Doesn't all that mi'lady-ing annoy you, Neko?"  
  
"Well, no, not particuarly. Seph-dono calls me mi'lady, when he teases me, so I've gotten used to it." She grins, and continues in a stage whisper, "That's why I add the 'dono' onto his name, to tease him back."  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
The Waterway, as always, is cold, damp, and frightening.  
  
Not even the complete remodeling of the Bastion changed THIS area, the moving walls of wraught brass, the exposed metal pipes and grey stone of the unmoving walls, the floor of solid luke-warm water. And Sephiroth rather likes it down here, where they havn't made everything bright and beautiful again, where they havn't even tried to wipe out the darkness.  
  
He comes down here to practice, most of the time- To practice, or to sit and just think, when his warm, comfortable, overstuffed leather chairs don't seem to really draw him.  
  
Today, the stone, the cold metal, the paridoxial water seems perfect for his mood, dark and brooding.  
  
Sephiroth is a bit disturbed by the fact that he's feeling dark and brooding today. Usually, Takeo would be there, to talk and joke with, or Neko, either cying so hard she can barely see or full of smiles and gossiping about the rest of the castle, and Sephiroth would be too busy having friends to be moody. But both of his friends have up and run off, no one truely knowing where they'd gone, and Sephiroth was left... Alone.  
  
After a while of sitting, having used the blue control panels to close off a cubical for himself, Sephiroth notices that...  
  
There's a Heartless standing right in front of him.  
  
After the shortest period of shock possible, Sephiroth leaps to his feet, Masamune in hand.   
  
:: Damn! I closed myself in- No room to MANUVER down here, even if I transported- It's not attacking?- Why the hell didn't I sense it?! ::  
  
Sephiroth pauses on the last thought.  
  
:: Her.::  
  
It had taken a moment to register, but the Heartless IS very feminine, from her braided dark red hair- Hair?!- and long eyelashes, to her dark, bell-sleaved robe.  
  
Sephiroth shakes his head, trying to clear the confusion from it. Since when did Heartless look so much like humans? Since when did Heartless wear DRESSES?  
  
-Konichiwa, Sephiroth-kun.-  
  
Sephiroth takes an unconsious step back. Did the Heartless just SPEAK to him? In NIHONGO?  
  
"What the HELL is going on?!" he snarls, "Why is there a HEARTLESS here? You're all GONE!"  
  
-You're scared, aren't you, Sephiroth-kun? Don't worry. I'm not here to take people's hearts.- The Heartless tilts her head in a humourus way. -I'm rather like a vocal White Mushroom, if you will.-  
  
Sephiroth glares harshly at her. "Hn, scared? Of course not. And if you're not here to kill people, why ARE you?"  
  
-I'm here to try and get you to join us again, Sephiroth-kun.- Her gleaming gold eyes look around, at the cold metal, cold stone, cold water they're standing upon. -I can see that you still love the dark.-  
  
Sephiroth snorts, ridiculing the idea. "I'd be just as happy without it, Heartless." His jade-glowing glare seems to sharpen. "I've learned from my mistakes, this last decade. I'm not going to go through it all again."  
  
She narrows her eyes at him, the golden glow intensifieing. -This time, we might not give you a choice.- The Heartless steps closer to Sephiroth, slowly, menacingly, all the seeming humour gone from her posture and voice. -We might...-  
  
Sephiroth can't move. Something holds him still- a Stop spell, he realizes. The Heartless walk right in front of him, she looks up, eyes narrowed to slits of almost painfully bright gold in an otherwise featureless black face. A sharp pain lances through the back of Sephiroth's head-  
  
-I see.- The Heartless seems to sneer at him, though her round, smooth face doesn't change. -We could kill the boy, if you don't join us. And maybe that silver-haired little girl?-  
  
Sephiroth's eyes widen. :: Takeo- Neko?! ::  
  
-Join us, and we MIGHT keep them safe for you... Sephiroth-kun.- Her voice purrs with malice, and she reaches up to touch his cheek with a mitten-shaped hand. -Or we could give them to you, to take care of. By that time, the darkness might have eaten you so much, you would kill them yourself, but you MIGHT be human enough to resist that urge...- An almost-snicker. -Maybe.-  
  
Sephiroth couldn't move, even if he wasn't held by the spell. :: No- I couldn't let that happen to them! I can't put them in danger by refusing- Get a hold of yourself, Sephiroth! They could take care of themselves. I trained Takeo myself, they- There's no way they'd let themselves be killed... ::  
  
- Do you really think they could escape seas of Heartless? Even were they to use their most powerful attacks, there would be more heartless waiting. Three worlds have already been taken, and we are STRONG.- The black hand, still touching his cheek, digs sharply through his skin, and blood starts to flow down his face. -We COULD kill them. Join us, Sephiroth-kun. Then they might live.- She smirks at him. -Or we might let you watch as they scream, their hearts being ripped out... - She drags the razor-sharp edge of her hand slowly down his face, - Inch... by agonizing inch. Wouldn't blood look lovely, against those pretty aqua eyes? -  
  
"NO!!" Sephiroth jerks back, his glowing green eyes wide, frightened, tears begining to mingle with blood as he vanishes, a puff of soft black feathers falling to where he stood.  
  
The Heartless would smile, if she had a mouth. She bends to lift a feather from the water.  
  
-You'll give in, Sephiroth-kun.- Swathes of black fog begin to bloom around her feet. -We just have to wait a little while.- They reach up to her perfectly round face, enveloping her in darkness, until only golden eyes shine through them. -Just a little while.-  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
The maid returns, opening the door to them. "Her Majesty says you may come in, Lady Neko, Lady- er... Dark Magician Girl...."  
  
Neko beams at the woman. "Thank you, miss!"   
  
The two girls enter, to see Ce'Nerda sitting on the edge of her bed, cradling Beldaran, her daughter. The red-headed queen looks up at them, her face lighting up.  
  
"Ah! Neko! Darkie!"  
  
Dark Magician Girl winces at the nickname as Neko grins happily.  
  
"Heya, Ce'Nerda-sama! How is she?"  
  
Ce'Nerda looks adoringly down at the baby. "She's asleep. And as beautiful as ever."  
  
Neko smiles. :: Aerith acted just like this, when Lani was little. And it's still kawaii. ::  
  
Ce'Nerda turns her face back up to Neko and Dark Magician Girl. "So, why did you want to see me?"  
  
"Anou, a friend of mine appeared unexpectedly, and we thought you should know- and put in a good word for him with the servants. He's a bit odd. Odder than us. I don't really think he's entirely human. Anou..."  
  
The queen smiles up at the two girls. "Oh, yes, Geran told me that a strange person showed up in the middle of your training sesion. I would like to meet, umm, what did Gearan say his name is?..."  
  
Neko smiles and supplies Ce'Nerda with "Miru".  
  
"Thank you, Nek-"  
  
Neko's eyes widen, her hands reaching out to shove Ce'Nerda away. "WATCH OUT!!!"  
  
A gyser of black energy rips half the bed to splinters, a swarm of winged black snakes pouring from the ground, each with shining gold eyes and a jagged red heart adorning them.  
  
Neko's Keyblades appear, and she rushes to protect Ce'Nerda. "KUSO-! Where the hell did they come from?!"  
  
Dark Magician Girl summons her own staff, the golden swirl capping it beginning to glow as she readies a spell. "I don't- Wait- These are- They attacked my home!" Her bright green eyes harden. "These are the things that killed Dark!"  
  
A blast of brilliant light fills the room, every person flinching back, the Heartless paralyzed in flight. Dark Magician Girl flails into the swarm, her staff lashing out as the brilliance seems to solidify into rainbow sparkles, burning where they touch Heartless flesh, and Neko twists, grabbing Ce'Nerda, Beldaran, half carrying the queen and baby princess out of the room.  
  
"Ce'Nerda! Go! Find Garion! He'll- KUSO!" A floating heartless- :: Wizard,:: whispers Neko's mind- appears in front of them, a glowing wand pointed at the three.  
  
Beldaran wakes up, begins to cry, as Ce'Nerda runs for her life.  
  
Neko hisses at the Heartless, slashing down at it with the dark Keyblade, a metallic whine as the Broken Heart meets the upraised staff and slides down the shaft, Neko twisting her hands so the rounded shaft of her weapon skids down. She twirls quickly, blade flying away from the staff and cutting through the Heartless, a puff of black smoke and a pink glitter rushing towards the ceiling all that remains.  
  
Except for a snarling canine, black and grey hackles raised, gold eyes and Heartless-emblazoned collar flashing, and about ten of its friends.  
  
Neko backs away, slowly, against the wall, the Broken Heart dissapearing from her hand as she reaches for her throwing knives, the Flying Hope Keyblade raised.  
  
:: I can get four- No, five with magic and another couple with knives, but that leaves four- dammit!::  
  
Neko hisses warily at the wolf-like creatures, a sharp throwing knife in hand as she raises her arm, her grasp on the Flying Hope loosening as she concentrates for her magic.  
  
They growl, the heavy sound filling the air.  
  
One of the smaller, more vulpine Heartless steps forward, only to be peirced by the knife, the smoke sweeping through the air. With an unearthly howl, the ten Heartless leap forward as a solid grey mass, only blood-red flashes of fangs and glowing gold eyes discerning them.  
  
"KE KISAMA!" Neko fires off the blast of frozen magic, only three of the creatures falling with puffs of black and ruby, athough many of the others flinch visibly, and she flings herself into the battle, slicing, blocking, kicking harshly, martial arts and kenjutsu empowered by flashes of ice shards. Still, one of the Heartless clamps down on her arm, right over her scar-  
  
A whirlwind of blond hair and floating red cloth sweeps past Neko, the Heartless clamped onto her arm dissapearing as a silver dirk slashes it. Miru steps lightly into the battle, face calm as he twists away from biting jaws and slashing claws at inhuman speeds.  
  
:: But then, he ISN'T human. ::  
  
As his dirk buries itself in the side of a Heartless, his eyes meet hers.  
  
* I don't need help, Kitten. That other girl might. *  
  
"Oh, KUSO!" Neko darts past the last three Heartless, ducking into what HAD been the Royal Suite, now filled with thick black vapor and trails of rainbows, swirling from the beating wings of the snake-like Heartless. "Dark Magician Girl! Where are you?!"   
  
"Over- over here!" The cry of pain following Dark Magician Girl's voice sends Neko searching the room with a frantic Scan.  
  
:: Heartless- half health- a KurayamiRyu- Darkness Dragon? But it's not my Dark- TsubasaRyu, half- TsubasaRyu, unhurt- KurayamiRyu, unhurt- Dark Magician Girl!:: Neko twist to the right, underneath a hissing KurayamiRyu, towards the Duel Monster. :: She's hurt- Badly!::   
  
The fog swirls away from Dark Magician Girl. Neko winces at the scrapes, cuts, slashes across the blond's skin, but after an instant of heasatation, throws up a barrier of ice around Dark Magician Girl, sparkling shards of the translucent wall pealing off and shooting in every direction, peircing smoky-dark Heartless flesh.  
  
:: Not like the room could get any more damaged...::  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Graziar  
  
Sora can feel something.  
  
It's like a little tugging at his heartstrings, a pull at the edges of his awareness.  
  
He's not quite sure what it is, but it seems to be back the way he came. The way they all came, along that rough and rocky dirt road.  
  
After a while of that persistent, intangible feeling, he stops walking. All four people walking with him turn.  
  
"There's... something... behind us."  
  
Oka looks vaugely startled, Niji blank, Zeff worried. And Takeo- That strange, nervous, quietly fierce boy, no older than Sora was when this all began- Is unreadably tired-looking. Always unreadable, nothing of his true thoughts showing past the unhappy mask and sometimes-burning eyes.  
  
Takeo, quite frankly, has been giving Sora the creeps since he stopped being nervous over the fact that Sora was there at all. Somewhat in the way that Zeff made him uneasy, with those odd rusty eyes and unnaturally natural streaked hair.  
  
But we digress.  
  
Zeff looks worried. "What sort of something?"  
  
Sora shrugs. "A... barely-there something." He pauses for a moment. "I think we should wait for it... Or go back to it."  
  
Oka shakes his head. "I think not. Backtracking is not something you do, on this path. And I don't think you're supposed to find this... Something. Not quite yet."  
  
Takeo looks up at the Guides. "I feel it too. We need to go back to him." As Zeff begins to protest, Takeo shoots a Look around, the chips of topaz by his eyes glowing faintly. "You three can go ahead walking, but Sora and I will go back."  
  
"..." The three Guides glance at each other.  
  
"Well..." Niji looks vaugely cheerful. "That's their decision, isn't it? Pieces don't always move the way you want them to!" He smiles.  
  
Oka grinds his teeth. "But we can't let them do this! Do you know how hard Miru has been working, to get everything perfect?"  
  
"But Miru ruined that himself, didn't he?" Zeff shrugs gently. "Perhaps it is for the best if we let them go on. Who knows? It certainly could not make things much worse, and berhaps it would be for the best. And anyway, I don't think we could stop Takeo even if we tried."  
  
Oka looks very annoyed, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Fine! I don't care, the worlds can all shatter for all that I care, so let them go off, ruining the balance!"   
  
He glares off into the didtance.  
  
Niji sighs, then smiles ruefully. "So, you two can run along now!" He makes little shooing gestures at Sora and Takeo. "We'll be right on behind you, as soon as Oka stops fuming at us."   
  
Sora blinks, but turns to follow Takeo, a final bubbly "Bai~!" trailing after them.  
  
********************  
  
-Glosarry-  
  
Chikushou: The strongest Japanese swearword I've ever run across. Don't let the transalators fool you- it's MUCH stronger than a mere 'darn it!'  
  
Ne: "Right?" "Isn't that so?"  
  
Konichiwa: Good afternoon  
  
-Kun: Honorable- For people you're close to in status, or you know well, or you've grown up with. One step up from 'chan' in politeness.  
  
Nihongo: Nihon=Japanese Go=Lauguage  
  
-Sama: High respect, "Lord" or "Lady". Higest level of respect.  
  
Kawaii: Cute. I tend to think of it as adorable-cute, and that seems to be the way they use it in anime, but what do I know? ^^;;  
  
Anou: Er... Umm...  
  
Kuso: Swearword. One of the more commonly used ones.  
  
Ke kisama: I can literally HEAR Inuyasha and Sanosuke yelling this one- figuratively, of course. ^_^ Aproximately "Damn bastard/s!" (The Japanese launguage has no plural, so you'll have to rely on context for how many things are getting sworn at. In the given case, about ten of my LupeShadows and LupeShades.)  
  
Kenjutsu: The art of sword fighting.  
  
**********  
  
WAI~! BRITISH ACCENT~! *Huggles her Ryou-chan* WAI~! BLOODY PICCU! *Huggles her pixel art of a certain pretty aqua eye with- You gessed it!- blood* WAI~! NARAKU-SAMA! *Huggles the InuYasha manga she's been reading at WaldenBooks* WAI~! YUGIOH VOLUME THREE!! *Huggles Duel 21, of Giga Pets and Things Honda Didn't Need To Hear* WAI~! MULTIMEDIA ONE! *Huggles the easiest class in her new school* WAI~! RUROUKEN TRANSALATIONS! *Huggles Enishi and the Revenge Arc*  
  
YnAlana: -_-;; Baka Hikari-chan...  
  
Eheh... ^_^ But can you blame me? They're all so... So WAI~! ... Even if some of my favorite authours would kill me for huggling my beloved Dub-style Ryou-chan... But then, last RurouKen, I wanted to kill that random assasin guy from the whachamacallit force or team or whatever, because he stole mt Hajime-san's voice actor... *Growls* MY Hajime-san! Mine, mine, ALL mine~!  
  
YnAlana: *BlinkBlink* ... She's been reading too many Yami no Malik-slash-Malik dementia ficcies... Or maybe too many Yami-slash-Hikari ficcies period...  
  
Or maybe it's because I'm writing this authours' note way too early in the morning! ^_^ Purdy anime charries...   
  
YnAlana: -_- Baka.  
  
We~e~ell, reveiw, my wonderful friends! I'll try and have Puppets: Part One out in a more timely manner!  
  
Ja ne~! 


	30. An Ugly Mask

Hey, minna-dono... *Waves, then passes out over the keyboard* x_x  
  
Lily: ... *Shakes her head in amusement* Told her that staying up every day to watch InuYasha was a mistake. And then she has to go and use her computer for another hour before going to bed... Oh! *remembers* This is the first update since she flipped her computer on, and it it actually turned on, isn't it? She's very happy that her computer-in her room- is connected to the 'net, and that she can FINALLY spend hours reading "East Of Sanity" Yu Yu Hakusho fanfics. She's nuts over HieixKurama, to the point that recently she sent an email to UT-sama bashing her over the fact that "Loos Ends" has been dangling without its last chapter for over three years. But, alas, her floppy drive still won't work, so she can only type when she has acess to her brother's or father's computer. Poor Alana-sama... Now, what else? Hmm... Wells, she spent days agonizing over this segment's title. Until the name "Puppets" came up and slaped her with a large trout. Then she spent even LONGER agonizing over this CHAPTER'S name, finaly settling on a line from a short Oni narrative she wrote. Well, half of the line. The seconed half will appear during the "Everything Now Becomes Clear To All (So there'll be lots of angsting and pain)" part of this fanfic. ... What else... Well, as Alana's only sane (and therefore ignored) muse, I cant think of anything more. But hopefully, Alana'll be awake by the end notes.  
  
Reveiwers: ... No one? Not even Jessica? Oh... v_v  
  
Warnings: P-poor NEKO~! *Sniffling* Why do you have to have such a awful past? *Bursts out crying for Neko* And... *Sob* Aku is a meany in this chappie... *Continues crying for Neko.*  
  
Yami no Alana: Oh, get over it already. I mean, DAMN girl, you ARE the one who WROTE it!  
  
Eh, true... Also, I decided on Sub-style for YuGiOh, except in the cases of the Duel Monsters, because no purist story I've read mentioned more than "Black Magician" and "Black Magician Girl", and anyway, "Dark" sounds so much nicer than "Black", ne? So, if any YGO charries need sub-to-dub transalation for the names, it'll be up here. This chapter, they won't, really, but in future chappies, there will be a need.  
  
Random Song Of The Day (AKA Disclaimer): ~ Wasurenai sa/Kimi to boku wo tsunagu no wa/It's true love for you...... ~ I do love the song "Our Seasons". ^_^ Worship Yu Yu Hakusho, for the music rules... The japanese music, anyway. The dub music kinda gets boring, the gazillinth time you hear it.  
  
********************  
  
Experimental  
  
Puppets: Part One  
  
An Ugly Mask...  
  
********************  
  
Anzu is worried.  
  
Kairi is always so amazingly quiet, always staring into space- Anzu can feel something like hope around the edges of Kairi's mind, except that it feels more like despair than any hope she has ever felt.  
  
Perhaps more expectant than hopeful.  
  
Maybe.  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
Garion paces nervously, looking less and less like a king every minute, Ce'Nerda tracking him with worried green eyes.  
  
Neko fidgets, rubbing at the painful half-healed bites that not even her potions could heal.  
  
Dark Magician Girl curls into a ball in the overstuffed chair reserved for her, her own scrapes, lacerations, and mental pain deeper than Neko's.  
  
Miru stands calmly, almost blending into the wall with non-presence, violet-to-blue eyes flitting from one person to the next.  
  
After a tense while, Garion looks up at Neko.  
  
"Well? What happened?"  
  
She fidgets harder. "Anou... The Heartless attacked."  
  
"Heartless." He lets the name roll out of his mouth, and shivers in a way that seems... odd, for one of the youngest and most powerful rulers in the world. "What... What ARE they? WHY did they attack, Neko?"  
  
"Well, I guess they attacked because... That's what they do. They steal hearts, because they want to replace the ones they lost. Or at least, that's what Sephiroth seems to think. He tends to be right about that sort of thing. And, what they are... No one really knows EXACTLY what they are."  
  
"Well, some people do. But they're few and far between." Miru's gaze flits around the room. "I know. Aku knows. A few others, though most don't understand how the Heartless can consume so much light, yet never lose their darkness."  
  
"... So..." Garion starts pacing again. "Those things... are after the light?"  
  
"The light in people's hearts," confirms Neko. "They've appeared twice before, in my lifetime. Although I gather that's kinda strange... Leon says that, before Ansem released them, he'd only heard of them through an old woman's fairy tales. And then, when... when... when HE released them, we killed him quickly enough...that..." She looks even paler than normal, as she speaks the last line, and she suddenly stands up. "Excuse me for a moment, please. I... I need to..."  
  
She rushes from her room to the hallway.   
  
Dark Magician Girl begins to pull herself from her chair, only to find Miru pushing her back down. She looks wordlessly up at him, eyes pleading for any awnser.  
  
"Let her be. She isn't one to share her pain with people she isn't so close to." His eyes wander back to the door, and he shakes his head, wine-red beads clicking through his hair. "She feels she has to go through her pain by herself, so let her be."  
  
Dark Magician Girl averts her eyes. "...Alright..."  
  
*****  
  
Neko leans back into the wall by the door, head down, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth as tears start to well up.  
  
"Kami-sama..." She swipes the tears away angrily. "This is NOT the time to start crying... dammit... Why now? I havn't cried for months..." She sniffles, sliding down the wall as her knees give out.  
  
The tears really start to come, flowing down her face in shining rivulets. "Why... g'dammit, why'd y'hafta APOLOGIZE? Shimatta... If you had just died, with those black eyes, I could've..." She slides slowly to the floor. "But you had to go and say gomen, and... and..." Neko's hands clench, claws digging into her palms. "Do you know how much easier my life would be, if you had just DIED?" She punches the floor, weakly, sobbing. "You couldn't haunt me as a monster... But..." She spreads her hand out in front of her face, watching blood ooze from where claws bit into palm. "How could I have killed... my aniki..."  
  
Sniffling, Neko closes her hand, lowering it to the ground. "I still hate you," she mutters mournfully. "You just won't leave me alone, and you took my little sister away from me, and then you kept on making my life hell..." She bites her lip, wiping away the tears.  
  
"... Why?" she murmmurs to the air, the question seeming to hang there.  
  
********************  
  
And, far away in a place just a paper's width from her reality, a silvery-haired boy stares upwards and murmurs back.  
  
"I don't know, imouto."  
  
Ansem looks up from where he's brooding. "Did you say something, R.S.S.K.?"  
  
Oni bows his head, eyelids slipping closed as the molten amber bleeds across his eyes and the blindfold is raised to his face. "No. Why should ore-sama have done that?"  
  
Ansem twitches imperceptively, his own gold eyes unreadable. "When did you start using that pronoun? You always used 'boku', before I made you stop."  
  
"Oni doesn't use 'ore-sama.' And he never will." Shiru blends out of the misty twilight, grey hair and clothes shimmering faintly in the dim light. He sets something down on the ground, and fixes his blood-copper eyes on Oni's face. "Only one person I know uses that." He pauses, the intensity of his eyes making them seem to smolder in the dim light. "You really shouldn't tourture him so, you know. We're not supposed to directly control- just make sugestions."  
  
Aku lets out a bark of laughter. "Ha! That's funny. What do you think Miru is doing, now? I've gotten reports from three of my 'Shades that he's actually been killing ore-sama's Heartless. Isn't that against the very rules he set up?"  
  
"True..." Shiru slides gracefully to the ground, legs tucked beneath him. "But he does it for love, not hate."  
  
Aku actually growls, deep in Oni's throut. "Love. The silly stuff has stood in my way times beyond counting. Do you know how much sooner I could have started the chain if this boy-" Aku gestures at Oni's body. "-Hadn't loved so hard?"  
  
Ansem sits quietly, absorbing every word. :: So... The puzzle may not be together yet, but I'm finding the peices everywhere.:: He smiles grimly. :: And what a strange picture they fit into.::  
  
Aku and Shiru continue to quarrel about right and wrong, morality, and abandoning your job...  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~~~ Belgariad  
  
After Neko had come back in with a forced smile and red-rimmed eyes, she had finished explaining what she knew of the Heartless.  
  
No one commented over her flight from the room.  
  
Neko didn't offer an explanation.  
  
And that was the way it always was, for her.  
  
Afterwards, Neko and Dark Magician Girl returned to the room they shared, Miru trailing them silently.  
  
When they reach the room, Neko flops gracefully onto her bed, Dark Magician Girl perches on her own, and Miru sits indian-style in the single large, padded chair.  
  
Silence follows.  
  
"... Well?"  
  
Neko sighs at the other girl's inquiry. "You don't really want to know."  
  
"Sure I do. Why whouldn't I want to?" The Duel Monster shrugs. "If we're going to be killing these Heartless things together, I have a right to know what makes you run of crying."  
  
Blinking in shock, Neko sits up, legs tucking underneath her. "With-?  
  
"Of course. Did you think I'd let you destroy them without my help?" She levels a serious gaze at Neko. "Now, you tell me what's wrong."  
  
Neko sighs and shakes her head. "I don't think you'd understand. I only know three people that do- The one who lived through it with me, the one who's had near the same thing done to him, and Miru." She gives the Guide a fleeting, grim smile. "And you are a very special case."  
  
"Should I take that as a compliment?" he asks dryly.  
  
"No."  
  
Miru smiles faintly.  
  
Neko continues to Dark Magician Girl, "It's very complex. Lots of family problems." :: Family problems. Amazing that that's all they are, for outsiders. :: "But I really don't know much about you, either. What sort of family do YOU have?"  
  
"I don't."  
  
Neko blinks. "Don't?"  
  
"Just what I said. Don't. My... type... I don't know how to explain it. I have some relatives, in a way- Dark Magician, all three versions of him- although only one's mine- and Dark Sage, too. Then there are my more distant relatives, the ones tied to me only by the vaugest conections. Like, oh, I don't know- Mirage Knight. He's not even a Dark-type, and while he's immensly poverful, we rarely see him on the feild- This must be horribly confusing. I'm sorry. I'm so used to being in the Shadow Realm..." Dark Magician Girl taps her cheek thoughfully. " I guess I'll start at the beginning. It's like this. I'm not human. I think I was, a really long time ago, but five thousand years kinda wipes out your memory. Way back when, in the world I lived in before I was sealed into the tablets and cards... I served the Pharoh of the Black Land. Then, there were lots of my type running around, and the Pharoh had to seal them all away before they destroyed the world, but he sealed himself away in the proccess.  
  
"Not so long ago, maybe... What, ten years? Something like that- An man called Pegusas found the carvings of the monsters that had been sealed away, was given the Sennen Eye- A talisman of power, used to control monsters- Had it installed- I've heard that it's a rather gruesom process- and went off, creating a card game for us. Then, less then a year ago, a boy named Yugi was given the peices to the puzzle that held the Great Pharoh, and-"  
  
"Wait a moment," Neko interupts, "Yugi means 'game', right?"  
  
"Well... I guess so. I never thought about it." Dark Magician Girl shrugs. "But, in any case, Master Yugi solved the puzzle, and m'lord Pharoh came back, and we all woke up. And we lived in the Shadow Realm- From what I've heard, I'd think it's most likely a world brushing up so closely to m'lord Pharoh's that a very small amount of magic could break the barriers between them- And occasionally, m'lord Pharoh would summon us up, and we'd help him deal out justice to anyone who hurt Yugi." The hand moves from her cheek to her hair, and she twirld the blond locks absently. "I think that he wasn't all there, for a while- although Darky saw more than I did. By the time he summoned me, I really couldn't find much wrong with his head. So... I'm reall more of a spirit than a human. Hence, no one I could really call a relative."  
  
Silence reigns once again.  
  
"Huh. That's... Diffrent."  
  
Dark Magician Girl snickers at the understatement.  
  
********************  
  
Glossary:  
  
Anou: Umm...  
  
Kami-sama: Lord God  
  
Shimatta: I did it/ I messed up (Damn)  
  
Gomen: Sorry (A rather childish was to say sorry)  
  
Aniki: Older Brother- very personal level. You'd only use for your OWN older brother.  
  
Imouto: Little Sister- see Aniki  
  
Ore-sama: Lord Me (Sheesh, Aku's going to piss someone off, talking like that. *Shakes her head* Ego...)  
  
********************  
  
Yay! I got another chappie out!  
  
Now, first and foremost: Go out, rent the anime "Generator Gawl", and worship daily.  
  
Secondly: Do the same for "Fruits Basket".  
  
Thirdly: http://cdk8.mine.nu:7000/blogs/music/anime/YYH/ Go to that site and download anything sung by Kurama or Hiei. Or both. Excuse me while I worship Ogata Megumi... No girl is allowed to have that nice of a voice while singing as a guy... And Hiei's voice actor simply isn't allowed to sound that sexy... *melts all over the floor* Wai~, Hiei-chan...  
  
Fourthly: John. Worship the letter Q in honour of my great friend John. Join the cult of Q! MWAHAHAHAHAHAA- *Gets dragged off by the nice men in white coats*  
  
Fithly: Please, PLEASE reveiw? I felt kinda down when no one reveiwed in three weeks...  
  
Sixthly: Happy Valentine's day! *Glomps everyone and hands out cyber-chocolates and Experimental plushies* Lessee, some to every reveiwer I've ever had... Jessica! Here, you can have the Oni plush with the TsubasaRyu, since you love dragons and darkness. Maji-dono, you can have... Lessee... You like Sora and Riku, ne? Then have them both! soraoathkeeper, you wanted to be Neko, but will a plushy of her with Keyblades and Unknown Coat work? ^_^ ShiAne, you only reveiwed, what, twice? You can have a plushie of Takeo, my adorable little bishy. Cloud-123, er... I don't know what to give you... Checking bio... You seem to like Squall, so you can have a plush of him. Leann-Chan, your Bio says you're obsessed about Ansem, so you can have a plush of him, and shadowwind, my first reveiwer ever... You can get beloved little Anzu. ^_^  
  
Word Count: 2563 by Microsoft Word's count... Quite a step up from where I began, ne? ^_^ 


	31. Tell Me Of a Story

Reveiwers: SamaraRose7 (Oh, poor you! Having a computer hog in the house? *Shudder* And I'm so glad you think I'm writing well! ^_^ Creepy is good, it's mostly what I'm aiming for. And happy [even more belated] Valentines to you too! Didja get you Cyber-plushie? *Points to the very end of last chapter* I hope you like it... ^_^), Kairi_hater (*Huggle* Sankyuu~! ^_^)  
  
Warnings: Eh, normal creepyness factor, normal weirdness factor, and a little bit more than normal level of confusion around Aku...  
  
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, and other copyrighted things don't belong to me. Neko, Oni, Takeo, Anzu, most of the ENEG-tachi, Lani, and random side charries I made up as fillers do. Questions? Comments? Leave them in a reveiw, or e-mail me at alanadeckert@sio.midco.net (NOT Earthlink! That adress is no longer in use!) and expect a long wait while I bug Dad into fixing my Eudoura...  
  
*******************  
  
Experimental  
  
Puppets: Part Two  
  
Tell Me Of A Story  
  
********************  
  
Aku shakes Oni's head. "You didn't seem to protest this much when you arrived."  
  
Shiru's eyes narrow even more. "I didn't know how cruely you were treating his emotions."  
  
A bark of laughter. "And you probably wouldn't care, if it wasn't him. Is ore-sama right?"  
  
Aku finds himself pinned against a pillar of dark energy by the irate Guide. "You have no real power here, Aku. Don't test me." The blood-copper eyes bore through the black cloth. "I am only trying to put everything into balance. Just because we are of a Book, does not mean I wouldn't do this for anyone else." The arm pinning Oni's body to the wall pulls back as the sneer drops from the pale, delicate face.  
  
"Na-nani?..." One shaking hand fumbles at the knot of the blindfold, Shiru stepping away. "What happened?" Oni's pain is, truthfully... The same. Not milder, as from a Heartless victory, or deeper and tearing, as from Aku's will... The same. Although his neck hurts, unusually.  
  
"Don't worry aboput it, Oni." Shiru steps where the pillar was, his hands delftly pulling the knot apart, the blindfold falling to the ground.  
  
"Domo arigatou gozaimasu... I hate that thing." Oni notices that his hads are shaking as her bends to pick up the strip of cloth.  
  
A swirl of energy surrounds it, Shiru pulling Oni back. "Don't bother. Hopefully, if I keep an eye on you, he won't use it anymore."  
  
Oni nods. "Wakatta..."  
  
Ansem taps Oni's shoulder, and the boy turns, looking up at the taller man.  
  
"R.S.S.K.-"  
  
"Oni."  
  
"Oni, would you explain?"  
  
"... I don't know if I can..."  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Graziar  
  
Sora and Takeo walk.  
  
Sora glances over his shoulder, at where the three distant figures have finally started moving again, then at Takeo, who almost seems to be listening to something else, and ahead, where the faint pull is coming from. And the two continue to walk.  
  
"Err... Takeo?"   
  
The boy glances towards Sora, then stares straight ahead. "Nani, otousan?"  
  
"Do you... Do you know what we're doing?" Sora pokes tenderly at the subject.  
  
"We're walking. Towards a person that seems to be pulling at us without realizing it."  
  
"That's not what I mean."  
  
"I know. But... I don't." Takeo stops, turning to Sora, their eyes meeting for the first time since their strange, abrupt first meeting. "I never thought of what I would do, if I met you. Well, no, that's not true. I thought you'd be grown up, married to the girl everyone who's met you both said you'd marry, living happily at- what was it- Destiny Island? - and with bushles of giggling kids. You'd hear my story, then kick me out of your home because I'd be a disturbance in Happily Ever After. Then you'd go off with wife and kids, and forget about me, and I'd go home, cry, get hugged by Seph and my sister, assuming she hadn't succeded in commiting suicide by then, go to bed, and continue training with a longsword in the morning." He shrugs, a ironic smile crossing his face. "I'm a pessimist. It comes from hanging around Sephiroth too much."  
  
Sora glances away, the unwavering, unreadable aqua eyes uncomfortable to look into.  
  
They continue walking, silence streching between them like an unnavigable river.  
  
"Anou..."  
  
Takeo's soft voice barely carries the few feet between them.  
  
"You... really don't hate me, or anything?"  
  
Sora shakes his head. "I don't hate you... You creep me out, a little, but I don't hate you, and I don't think I'd have justifacation, if I did."  
  
"Isn't it enough..." Takeo glances out of the corner of his eye, then fixes his gaze back on the road. "Isn't the fact that Ansem created me enough to be hated?"  
  
"Err..." Sora shakes his head, truly confused. "I don't see what that has to do with you, as a person. I mean, some of the best people I've known have been alley-children, or raised by gorrilas- so what does the fact that Ansem made a DNA cocktail of me n' Riku, and made you, got to do with anything?"  
  
"..." A smile crosses Takeo's features, but Sora isn't looking. Still... "Domo arigatou, otousan."  
  
"... What in all the worlds dis you just say?"  
  
"Nothing, nothing at all." A long pause, uncomfortable, but not as unbreachable as before. "Only about another day of walking, and we'll meet up with this person. I'm curious to know who can reach us both, and pull at our... Our... Anou... Heart-strings?... Who can pull at our heart-strings so subtly, without realizing... I've only known one person who could even come close, and she's long dead."  
  
********************  
  
Another Dream.  
  
For just a moment, a giant chess board flashes across Neko's mind...  
  
The feeling of the Dream is... Diffrent. No longer tinged with that ever-familiar, gentle presence...  
  
:: Miru can't help me here. Not anymore. ::  
  
Neko is, for just a moment, very frightened.  
  
:: But who's here now?!?! ::  
  
Yes, there is a presence... Not so kind, so gentle, so reassuring...  
  
^ Hello, child. ^  
  
Neko awnsers reflexively to the crystaline brightness surrounding her; "I'm not a child anymore."  
  
^ If you say so. Would you rather I called you kitten? ^  
  
"Only Miru-san can call me that. If you must take his place as the director of my Dreams, call me Neko."  
  
^ You don't seem all surprized by the transfer. ^  
  
"Well, If Miru-san's here, he can't very well be there, ne?"  
  
A startled flicker rings through the unsteady crystal space around her. She suddenly plunges into deep, black sleep, the silver fading quickly.  
  
***  
  
Across the hall from the room the two girls share, Miru's eyes snap open.  
  
* I can feel you there, Mickey.*  
  
/... Why didn't we realize where you had gone? /  
  
* Because it was so obvious. *  
  
A long silence stretches between them.  
  
/ We need you, you know. We can't work without the Reader. /  
  
* Yes you can. Right now, I need to be HERE, by my Kitten's side. If I can't help, she'll break. * A tense pause. * She's still going to break, eventually. But... I can still delay it. *  
  
/ Can you, Miru? /  
  
Nothing but echoing silence falls between them until Miru gives a terse reply- * My problem. Not yours. Leave. Now. *  
  
Mickey sighs. / We've all changed so much, havn't we? I almost with things were like twenty years ago- But this was all necassary. /  
  
* Was it, Mickey? Who says that She couldn't do this on Her own? Who's to say that we're all not just puppets, having our strings pulled by Her? I'm the Reader of the Pages. And I've read... many things. She could have fixed this Herself- She most likely will, if we fail. But She has a twisted sense of life- She'll throw us to the dogs, let our blood and darkness bleed out of our hearts, just for the laws of Her Nature. And... * Miru breaks off. * Just leave, Mickey. I can't talk of it to you. Even after all these years, you are too inoccent to face Her truth, whatever it may be. Just go out, find a temporary Reader for the Pages, if you must- Zeff is particuarly level-headed- But let me run my own way. I should at least deserve some freedom, after all these years of... *  
  
***  
  
King Mickey sighs as Miru's thought trails off, and the mouse breaks the temporary comunication-thread.  
  
^ Well? ^  
  
"I don't know, LP. He's... bitter. He's been thinking too much... Reading too deeply into the Pages." The king shakes his head. "That was the first thing he warned me of, those many years ago, when I first had to join. But..."  
  
:: How would he know not to look too deeply- if he hadn't? ::  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
Lani sits on Neko's bed, feet swinging dejectedly against the side, a manilla folder in her small hands.  
  
She opens the folder, shuffling through the scetches...  
  
Finding the ones she was looking for, she lays out the Dream-drawings on the silver-toned comforter.  
  
:: She said her dreams were hints of Fate, right? So she must have her fate in here... ::  
  
The dark scribblings of unreal places, smears from where a pale hand rubbed over the charcoal, hold the unreality of someone not sure what they're drawing, but unable to try and sort them out...  
  
In the first drawing, the long arc of an impssible huge cresent moon drifts over a ocean of crystals, the edges of the darkness rippling into feathers, a smudge of a red pigment adding the only color to the fingers of a sharp-nailed hand reaching onto the paper...  
  
Staring at the picture, Lani sees that it had been a Dream with Neko's sister, one of the ones where she had woken up, tears in her gold-fringed eyes and a scream in her throat.  
  
Lani shudders slightly, goes on to the next one.  
  
Only a few lines mar the paper, smudged into a faint figure with darkened blurs from the back, the hands holding a small smudge of ruddy pigment and thick lines of chalk fluttering around the head. Along the bottom, a few kana in the red pigment forming a few words of Nihongo...  
  
{ gomen nazai, aniki no usotsuki }  
  
The chilling feeling coming over Lani makes her push the picture away.  
  
Next, more dark landscapes, blurry smudges of blood- :: Red, just a pigment stick, not blood- :: framing everything in grim unreality.  
  
The very bottom- :: The newest, Neko-senpai always puts her new drawings on the bottom- :: has a pale face, delicate, almost like Neko's, but eyes more sorrowful than hers even on a bad day.  
  
{ boku no sei da }  
  
{ iya, aniki, atashi no sei da }  
  
"It's not either of your faults..." Lani whispers, tears in her eyes, fingers tracing the red kana a shade above the paper. "It never was..."  
  
********************  
  
Ore-sama: That mega-egotistical first-person pronoun...  
  
Domo arigatou gozaimasu: Thank you very much. (Domo means 'very')  
  
Nani: What?  
  
Wakatta: Understood/ I understand.  
  
Otousan: Father, fairly respectful with the honorable 'O' and the suffix '-san'  
  
Anou: Umm...  
  
-san: ... You know this by now, right?  
  
Kana: Katakana or hiragana, the Japanese symbols to represent sounds, as compared to kanji, symbols to represent entire words.   
  
Gomen nazai, aniki no usotsuki: Lesse if we can work through this one together! ^_^ Gomen nazai means 'I'm sorry', ne? And we know 'aniki' is an informal way to say 'older brother', and by now most people have figured out that 'no' is a posseive/attibute marker. So the only new word is 'usotsuki', which means liar. So, put together, it's "I'm sorry, liar brother".  
  
-senpai: A suffix I dont use often- once before in this story, actually. ^^;; A peculiarity of Lani's. -Senpai is probably what you'd use for a classmate you didn't know well, or someone only a few rungs higher than you on the social ladder. Polite, but not to the extreme...  
  
Boku no sei da: It Is my fault. (Boku= -polite, masculine- my, sei= fault)  
  
Iya, aniki, atashi no sei da: No, older brother, it's my fault. ( Iya= -Informal- no, aniki= -informal- older brother, atashi= -polite, feminine- my, sei= fault)  
  
********************  
  
Konichiwa or ohayou or konbanwa or whatever greeting works for whenever you're reading this... Sorry about late-ness. ^^;; First no time, then sick, then girl-stuff, then a combo of some sort of bug and girl-stuff, then my first cavity and filling thereof, leaving one cheek and half my mouth numb... And some beyond-good-and-rather-overly-long fanfics, including a cute Harry Potter fanfic written by someone who actually lives in England and highly reccomended by someone who doesn't even particuarly like the pairing and an extended Soujiro-goes-off-traveling-and-finds-some-happiness-and-then-has-bad-stuff-happen-and-will-henceforth-be-reffered-to-as-poor-Sou-chan thing... Oi~! I love this song! *Sings with the radio* ~ We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning! We didn't start the fire, no we didn't light it but we tried to fight it! ~ *Gets smacked by mou hitori no Alana* ORO~! @_@  
  
Mou Hitori no Alana: Baka. -_- Either make a point or shut up.  
  
*Sticks her tounge out* Meanie. Well, not really any points I can make... Except that Evanesence has UNFAIRLY good music, and their song "My Immortal" fits too well into this fanfic... And I keep on running into the word 'Oni' everywhere I turn... *Glares at certain games, shows, fanfics, ect...* Oh! And I HIGHLY reccomend the anime/manga Naruto, especially the anime. My friend John got a fan-subbed version off the 'net somewhere, and I LOVE it! *Huggles Naruto* Kawaii little youko-sealed-inside-of perverted ninja... =^_^=  
  
Well, that's pretty much it... Oh! And if you ever get a chance to see the King Singers, DO SO. They RULE. The best part is the VERY end, though, where they'll do 'Penny Lane' and 'There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly' and such... ^^ Funny!   
  
Well, ja ne, and don't forget to reveiw~! ^^  
  
~ Alana Hikari-chan 


	32. Fall Into The Sky

Reveiwers: SamaraRose7 (Oh, poor you! Having a computer hog in the house? *Shudder* And I'm so glad you think I'm writing well! ^_^ Creepy is good, it's mostly what I'm aiming for. And happy [even more belated] Valentines to you too! Didja get you Cyber-plushie? *Points to the very end of last chapter* I hope you like it... ^_^), Kairi_hater (*Huggle* Sankyuu~! ^_^)  
  
Warnings: Eh, normal creepyness factor, normal weirdness factor, and a little bit more than normal level of confusion around Aku...  
  
Disclaimer: Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, and other copyrighted things don't belong to me. Neko, Oni, Takeo, Anzu, most of the ENEG-tachi, Lani, and random side charries I made up as fillers do. Questions? Comments? Leave them in a reveiw, or e-mail me at alanadeckert@sio.midco.net (NOT Earthlink! That adress is no longer in use!) and expect a long wait while I bug Dad into fixing my Eudoura...  
  
*******************  
  
Experimental  
  
Puppets: Part Two  
  
Tell Me Of A Story  
  
********************  
  
Aku shakes Oni's head. "You didn't seem to protest this much when you arrived."  
  
Shiru's eyes narrow even more. "I didn't know how cruely you were treating his emotions."  
  
A bark of laughter. "And you probably wouldn't care, if it wasn't him. Is ore-sama right?"  
  
Aku finds himself pinned against a pillar of dark energy by the irate Guide. "You have no real power here, Aku. Don't test me." The blood-copper eyes bore through the black cloth. "I am only trying to put everything into balance. Just because we are of a Book, does not mean I wouldn't do this for anyone else." The arm pinning Oni's body to the wall pulls back as the sneer drops from the pale, delicate face.  
  
"Na-nani?..." One shaking hand fumbles at the knot of the blindfold, Shiru stepping away. "What happened?" Oni's pain is, truthfully... The same. Not milder, as from a Heartless victory, or deeper and tearing, as from Aku's will... The same. Although his neck hurts, unusually.  
  
"Don't worry aboput it, Oni." Shiru steps where the pillar was, his hands delftly pulling the knot apart, the blindfold falling to the ground.  
  
"Domo arigatou gozaimasu... I hate that thing." Oni notices that his hads are shaking as her bends to pick up the strip of cloth.  
  
A swirl of energy surrounds it, Shiru pulling Oni back. "Don't bother. Hopefully, if I keep an eye on you, he won't use it anymore."  
  
Oni nods. "Wakatta..."  
  
Ansem taps Oni's shoulder, and the boy turns, looking up at the taller man.  
  
"R.S.S.K.-"  
  
"Oni."  
  
"Oni, would you explain?"  
  
"... I don't know if I can..."  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Graziar  
  
Sora and Takeo walk.  
  
Sora glances over his shoulder, at where the three distant figures have finally started moving again, then at Takeo, who almost seems to be listening to something else, and ahead, where the faint pull is coming from. And the two continue to walk.  
  
"Err... Takeo?"   
  
The boy glances towards Sora, then stares straight ahead. "Nani, otousan?"  
  
"Do you... Do you know what we're doing?" Sora pokes tenderly at the subject.  
  
"We're walking. Towards a person that seems to be pulling at us without realizing it."  
  
"That's not what I mean."  
  
"I know. But... I don't." Takeo stops, turning to Sora, their eyes meeting for the first time since their strange, abrupt first meeting. "I never thought of what I would do, if I met you. Well, no, that's not true. I thought you'd be grown up, married to the girl everyone who's met you both said you'd marry, living happily at- what was it- Destiny Island? - and with bushles of giggling kids. You'd hear my story, then kick me out of your home because I'd be a disturbance in Happily Ever After. Then you'd go off with wife and kids, and forget about me, and I'd go home, cry, get hugged by Seph and my sister, assuming she hadn't succeded in commiting suicide by then, go to bed, and continue training with a longsword in the morning." He shrugs, a ironic smile crossing his face. "I'm a pessimist. It comes from hanging around Sephiroth too much."  
  
Sora glances away, the unwavering, unreadable aqua eyes uncomfortable to look into.  
  
They continue walking, silence streching between them like an unnavigable river.  
  
"Anou..."  
  
Takeo's soft voice barely carries the few feet between them.  
  
"You... really don't hate me, or anything?"  
  
Sora shakes his head. "I don't hate you... You creep me out, a little, but I don't hate you, and I don't think I'd have justifacation, if I did."  
  
"Isn't it enough..." Takeo glances out of the corner of his eye, then fixes his gaze back on the road. "Isn't the fact that Ansem created me enough to be hated?"  
  
"Err..." Sora shakes his head, truly confused. "I don't see what that has to do with you, as a person. I mean, some of the best people I've known have been alley-children, or raised by gorrilas- so what does the fact that Ansem made a DNA cocktail of me n' Riku, and made you, got to do with anything?"  
  
"..." A smile crosses Takeo's features, but Sora isn't looking. Still... "Domo arigatou, otousan."  
  
"... What in all the worlds dis you just say?"  
  
"Nothing, nothing at all." A long pause, uncomfortable, but not as unbreachable as before. "Only about another day of walking, and we'll meet up with this person. I'm curious to know who can reach us both, and pull at our... Our... Anou... Heart-strings?... Who can pull at our heart-strings so subtly, without realizing... I've only known one person who could even come close, and she's long dead."  
  
********************  
  
Another Dream.  
  
For just a moment, a giant chess board flashes across Neko's mind...  
  
The feeling of the Dream is... Diffrent. No longer tinged with that ever-familiar, gentle presence...  
  
:: Miru can't help me here. Not anymore. ::  
  
Neko is, for just a moment, very frightened.  
  
:: But who's here now?!?! ::  
  
Yes, there is a presence... Not so kind, so gentle, so reassuring...  
  
^ Hello, child. ^  
  
Neko awnsers reflexively to the crystaline brightness surrounding her; "I'm not a child anymore."  
  
^ If you say so. Would you rather I called you kitten? ^  
  
"Only Miru-san can call me that. If you must take his place as the director of my Dreams, call me Neko."  
  
^ You don't seem all surprized by the transfer. ^  
  
"Well, If Miru-san's here, he can't very well be there, ne?"  
  
A startled flicker rings through the unsteady crystal space around her. She suddenly plunges into deep, black sleep, the silver fading quickly.  
  
***  
  
Across the hall from the room the two girls share, Miru's eyes snap open.  
  
* I can feel you there, Mickey.*  
  
/... Why didn't we realize where you had gone? /  
  
* Because it was so obvious. *  
  
A long silence stretches between them.  
  
/ We need you, you know. We can't work without the Reader. /  
  
* Yes you can. Right now, I need to be HERE, by my Kitten's side. If I can't help, she'll break. * A tense pause. * She's still going to break, eventually. But... I can still delay it. *  
  
/ Can you, Miru? /  
  
Nothing but echoing silence falls between them until Miru gives a terse reply- * My problem. Not yours. Leave. Now. *  
  
Mickey sighs. / We've all changed so much, havn't we? I almost with things were like twenty years ago- But this was all necassary. /  
  
* Was it, Mickey? Who says that She couldn't do this on Her own? Who's to say that we're all not just puppets, having our strings pulled by Her? I'm the Reader of the Pages. And I've read... many things. She could have fixed this Herself- She most likely will, if we fail. But She has a twisted sense of life- She'll throw us to the dogs, let our blood and darkness bleed out of our hearts, just for the laws of Her Nature. And... * Miru breaks off. * Just leave, Mickey. I can't talk of it to you. Even after all these years, you are too inoccent to face Her truth, whatever it may be. Just go out, find a temporary Reader for the Pages, if you must- Zeff is particuarly level-headed- But let me run my own way. I should at least deserve some freedom, after all these years of... *  
  
***  
  
King Mickey sighs as Miru's thought trails off, and the mouse breaks the temporary comunication-thread.  
  
^ Well? ^  
  
"I don't know, LP. He's... bitter. He's been thinking too much... Reading too deeply into the Pages." The king shakes his head. "That was the first thing he warned me of, those many years ago, when I first had to join. But..."  
  
:: How would he know not to look too deeply- if he hadn't? ::  
  
********************  
  
~~~~~ Bastion  
  
Lani sits on Neko's bed, feet swinging dejectedly against the side, a manilla folder in her small hands.  
  
She opens the folder, shuffling through the scetches...  
  
Finding the ones she was looking for, she lays out the Dream-drawings on the silver-toned comforter.  
  
:: She said her dreams were hints of Fate, right? So she must have her fate in here... ::  
  
The dark scribblings of unreal places, smears from where a pale hand rubbed over the charcoal, hold the unreality of someone not sure what they're drawing, but unable to try and sort them out...  
  
In the first drawing, the long arc of an impssible huge cresent moon drifts over a ocean of crystals, the edges of the darkness rippling into feathers, a smudge of a red pigment adding the only color to the fingers of a sharp-nailed hand reaching onto the paper...  
  
Staring at the picture, Lani sees that it had been a Dream with Neko's sister, one of the ones where she had woken up, tears in her gold-fringed eyes and a scream in her throat.  
  
Lani shudders slightly, goes on to the next one.  
  
Only a few lines mar the paper, smudged into a faint figure with darkened blurs from the back, the hands holding a small smudge of ruddy pigment and thick lines of chalk fluttering around the head. Along the bottom, a few kana in the red pigment forming a few words of Nihongo...  
  
{ gomen nazai, aniki no usotsuki }  
  
The chilling feeling coming over Lani makes her push the picture away.  
  
Next, more dark landscapes, blurry smudges of blood- :: Red, just a pigment stick, not blood- :: framing everything in grim unreality.  
  
The very bottom- :: The newest, Neko-senpai always puts her new drawings on the bottom- :: has a pale face, delicate, almost like Neko's, but eyes more sorrowful than hers even on a bad day.  
  
{ boku no sei da }  
  
{ iya, aniki, atashi no sei da }  
  
"It's not either of your faults..." Lani whispers, tears in her eyes, fingers tracing the red kana a shade above the paper. "It never was..."  
  
********************  
  
Ore-sama: That mega-egotistical first-person pronoun...  
  
Domo arigatou gozaimasu: Thank you very much. (Domo means 'very')  
  
Nani: What?  
  
Wakatta: Understood/ I understand.  
  
Otousan: Father, fairly respectful with the honorable 'O' and the suffix '-san'  
  
Anou: Umm...  
  
-san: ... You know this by now, right?  
  
Kana: Katakana or hiragana, the Japanese symbols to represent sounds, as compared to kanji, symbols to represent entire words.   
  
Gomen nazai, aniki no usotsuki: Lesse if we can work through this one together! ^_^ Gomen nazai means 'I'm sorry', ne? And we know 'aniki' is an informal way to say 'older brother', and by now most people have figured out that 'no' is a posseive/attibute marker. So the only new word is 'usotsuki', which means liar. So, put together, it's "I'm sorry, liar brother".  
  
-senpai: A suffix I dont use often- once before in this story, actually. ^^;; A peculiarity of Lani's. -Senpai is probably what you'd use for a classmate you didn't know well, or someone only a few rungs higher than you on the social ladder. Polite, but not to the extreme...  
  
Boku no sei da: It Is my fault. (Boku= -polite, masculine- my, sei= fault)  
  
Iya, aniki, atashi no sei da: No, older brother, it's my fault. ( Iya= -Informal- no, aniki= -informal- older brother, atashi= -polite, feminine- my, sei= fault)  
  
********************  
  
Konichiwa or ohayou or konbanwa or whatever greeting works for whenever you're reading this... Sorry about late-ness. ^^;; First no time, then sick, then girl-stuff, then a combo of some sort of bug and girl-stuff, then my first cavity and filling thereof, leaving one cheek and half my mouth numb... And some beyond-good-and-rather-overly-long fanfics, including a cute Harry Potter fanfic written by someone who actually lives in England and highly reccomended by someone who doesn't even particuarly like the pairing and an extended Soujiro-goes-off-traveling-and-finds-some-happiness-and-then-has-bad-stuff-happen-and-will-henceforth-be-reffered-to-as-poor-Sou-chan thing... Oi~! I love this song! *Sings with the radio* ~ We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning! We didn't start the fire, no we didn't light it but we tried to fight it! ~ *Gets smacked by mou hitori no Alana* ORO~! @_@  
  
Mou Hitori no Alana: Baka. -_- Either make a point or shut up.  
  
*Sticks her tounge out* Meanie. Well, not really any points I can make... Except that Evanesence has UNFAIRLY good music, and their song "My Immortal" fits too well into this fanfic... And I keep on running into the word 'Oni' everywhere I turn... *Glares at certain games, shows, fanfics, ect...* Oh! And I HIGHLY reccomend the anime/manga Naruto, especially the anime. My friend John got a fan-subbed version off the 'net somewhere, and I LOVE it! *Huggles Naruto* Kawaii little youko-sealed-inside-of perverted ninja... =^_^=  
  
Well, that's pretty much it... Oh! And if you ever get a chance to see the King Singers, DO SO. They RULE. The best part is the VERY end, though, where they'll do 'Penny Lane' and 'There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly' and such... ^^ Funny!   
  
Well, ja ne, and don't forget to reveiw~! ^^  
  
~ Alana Hikari-chan 


	33. Important Message to Everyone

Dear Everyone:  
  
As of now, Experimental-- and all my other fanfiction-- is on hiatus.  
  
This doesn't mean I'm dissapearing from FanFiction.net. I'll still be puttering about, and I'm certainly going to post a few one-shots here and there, but I have an awful case of Writer's Block. My muses have gone off the radar-- even Jo has been quiet!-- and I rarely have any time to write, even when they do drop in. The next chapter, What Does He Care, has exactly the title segment, the place setting, and nothing more. And I'm not having a problem with where the story is going, it's just that the GOOD stuff doesn't happen until later. I'm still in set up... And I can't WRITE set-up for the LIFE of me. Not when it's boring, let's-go-off-and-kill-heartless stuff. I have so many plans, and no graceful way to get to them...  
  
Aside from the Dreaded Block, Kami-sama has decreed that my life will suck. I'm in a slump in Real Life, stressed out, depressed, and generally feeling like Neko on a bad day, with less reason. *Sighs* Meh...   
  
I'm going to be working, but I probably won't post again untill I have at least a few chapters written. And then I'll post once-weekly for a while, and then I'll go back to my bi-to-tri-to-quadweekly scedule, hopefully staying the the bi-to-tri area.  
  
What a sucky way to celebrate Experimental's birthday, ne? ~_~  
  
Now, to actually put content into this so the Powers That Be don't get annoyed...  
  
~~~ Alana  
  
###################  
  
####% Himitsu %#####  
  
###################  
  
The sun goes down  
  
I feel the light betray me  
  
There's nothing left for me  
  
I wish I could die  
  
All I've got left  
  
Is a darkness in my heart  
  
Nothing but the void  
  
Striking out for fun  
  
An evil behind my mind  
  
The something I don't want to see  
  
There's just something not right with me  
  
And it's showing on the outside  
  
Don't you see it?  
  
He rapes what he wants  
  
Rips it apart with the merest touch  
  
And he's there inside of me  
  
He's the Nephil on my shoulder  
  
But there's no Seraph to match  
  
None to hold him inside  
  
None to hold him back  
  
And when the dark betrays me  
  
I know the sun goes out  
  
Ripped to shreds by blackness  
  
There's nothing all around  
  
I have a little secret-  
  
A little problem, too  
  
The Nephil wants to see me dead-  
  
I think I will ask you  
  
When the light betrays you,  
  
You turn to a thing that's true  
  
When the dark will hate you,  
  
What else can you do? 


End file.
